I beg to move, "That the Committee stage, Report stage, and the Third Reading of the Military Service Bill shall, unless previously disposed of, be proceeded with and brought to a conclusion at the times and in the manner hereinafter mentioned:

It will be useful to us.

My hon. Friend says it will be useful to him. But my speeches on those occasions have consisted largely—almost exclusively—of extracts from speeches of those moving such Resolutions, and they were very effective extracts; that is the only satisfaction I got from them. It is the case, as stated by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) that this is the first time a Resolution of this kind has been moved since the outbreak of War. That means that we are face to face now with a more acute form of Parliamentary controversy than fortunately has hitherto existed. I need not say that when the Government came to their decision to bring in this Bill we recognised, although we deeply regretted it, that that would be one of the effects of the decision. We had to balance the advantages and disadvantages and we thought it our duty to the country to take the course we have adopted. That is our justification also for the fact, which we all regret, I think, that this form of controversy has again become necessary. I do not think any Member of this House, assuming that the Bill is necessary—and the Government think it is—will doubt that this Resolution also is necessary. We have proof that it is. We have had the experience of two days' Debate in which hon. Members below the Gangway have made it quite plain that they intend to use every form of Parliamentary opposition to prevent us carrying the Bill. One of the hon. Members, indeed, told us, in so many words, on Monday, that he will obstruct the Bill, Clause by Clause and line by line, and, knowing what we do of the powers of the party below the Gangway, we recognise that without a Resolution of this kind it would be simply impossible to get the Bill in the time which the Government think necessary. That is our justification for a Resolution of this kind.

Now I come to the form of the Resolution. As it appears on the Paper there are to be three days for the Committee stage. I wish that that were possible. The Resolution follows precedent in being in this form. The Bill is to be dealt with in Committee, after this Resolution has been disposed of to-day, to-morrow (Friday), and on Monday, and the remaining stages are to be taken on Tuesday. That is the proposal of the Government.

Why not sit on Saturday?

If anyone wants a Saturday sitting, I am willing to give it. As a matter of fact, the Government have sought to divide the time to be allocated to this Bill in the way that seems to them best, but obviously there are different points of view, and, although the method of allocation may be a question on which hon. Members may differ, the important point is that we should get the Bill in the time fixed in the Resolution. The time is to be divided in this way: To-day, after this Resolution has been disposed of, we shall take Clause 1, and the guillotine will fall at 11 o'clock; to-morrow's sitting we propose to give to the Irish Clause, No. 2, Clause 3, as pointed out in the speeches yesterday, is a very important Clause indeed; it gives to the Government in their own hands very drastic powers, and that Clause, we propose, shall be decided at 6 o'clock on Monday. It gives the Government, as I say, very drastic powers—

Two hours!

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue—but it is not, I should have thought, a subject for which there was a great deal of room for discussion. It is a question of principle, with which the House either agrees or does not agree. Clause 4, which deals with another very important matter, the regulation of the tribunals, is to be taken at 9.30, and the rest of the Bill at 11 o'clock on Monday. I do not say for a moment that in peace-time such a Resolution would be reasonable. I doubt whether any Resolution equally drastic has ever been submitted to the House of Commons, although when I recall some of the previous guillotine Resolutions, and some of my own speeches upon them, I think it might be an arguable question whether this is more drastic than some of those. But it is very drastic. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith), on the opening day, urged the Government to give more time. We had intended, and the Prime Minister has announced the intention, to get this Bill through this House this week. In meeting the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Fife, we felt that we would, if it were possible, do something to show to the whole House that on a matter of this kind we were desirous of being reasonable as far as our duty would allow us to be so. I saw, and so did the Prime Minister my right hon. Friend. He is not able to be here to-day, but he has just told me—

Losing the War again!

— but he has authorised me to say—and I think it is another proof of his public spirit that he has authorised me to say—that in his view, without judging as to the way in which the time is allocated, and on the assumption—I wish the House clearly to under stand this, and they have heard his speeches—which we must make that the Bill is itself necessary, then the time which we have given to it does not seem to him unreasonable. That is our view.

Who says that?

The late Prime Minister. I say that this time is very drastic. I do not suggest for a moment that it gives adequate time under peace conditions for the consideration of all these subjects, but even allowing that, on the merits of the subjects now to be discussed, I do say this, that if the House voted with the knowledge that the Bill is to become law, with the desire that it should become law, with the desire to discuss only. things vital and most important—and, of course, under this Resolution the Chairman has the right to select the Amendments that shall be considered—even in that case I say a businesslike debate would enable an adequate discussion of these matters to take place in time of war. That is the only claim we make in that respect. But these are not peace conditions. We recommend this Resolution to the House, and we justify it, on the ground that in the opinion of the Government it is necessary that the Bill should be passed without delay. I know it will be said—it has been said already—that a day, or perhaps two days, cannot matter. If you start in that spirit you are not realising the actual facts of the situation and are not dealing with them as they exist to-day. I do ask hon. Members of this House, even those who are most opposed to our policy, to try to put themselves in the position of what has happened to this nation, to leave out of account questions of what we are accustomed to in ordinary practice in the House of Commons, to consider the attitude of the men who are in the trenches for us—who were referred to in a speech that affected me by an hon. Friend behind me—to picture to themselves what the feeling of the country is in a matter of this kind. I can say this, so far as I can judge, that the best indication of the view taken by the country of the action, for instance, of the hon. Member who is interrupting, is that the people who them selves know what is happening, who have their sons and brothers fighting in this War—

They are sick to death of you!

—are listening to the kind of criticism to which the Government is subjected by the hon. Gentleman. In cur view, time is of the essence in this matter. As a matter of fact the military authorities—there is no harm in my saying this—urged the Government to call Parliament together specially in order to pass this Bill.

They are always wrong!

They have been wrong all the time!

I do not say that. They urged the Government to call Parliament together specially in order to pass this Bill, which, at all events, shows that they consider it to be urgent. The Government did not take that course, not because we did not feel equally the urgency of the matter, but because we hoped that the same result would be got equally quickly in another way. The proposals were carefully planned and laid before the Government by the Ministry of National Service; they were then submitted to a Committee of Ministers, who met, day by day, going into them in detail; they were afterwards submitted to the Cabinet as a whole, who spent days in doing the same thing. We have, therefore, prepared these plans as carefully, as fully, as we could, and we have prepared them on the basis of what we believe to be the essential interests of the nation at this moment. We have brought them to the House of Commons, asking the House of Commons, on our responsibility, to let us have the powers which we say are necessary. In circumstances of this kind there is no question of precedent at all. It is a question of whether or not it is needed, and if you were to consider precedent the one that I would suggest is not in any of the guillotine Resolutions of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Fife, it is what happened when Sir William Harcourt carried in one day, through all its stages, the Explosives Bill, which was carried in the House of Lords the same day. I say, whether that was done in a panic or not, the necessity of that time was nothing in comparison with the necessity of to-day, and I say again to the House of Commons—I am not going to detain them, because obviously the amount of time that will be given to Clause 1 depends on the amount of time taken in discussing this Resolution—that we consider that this is vital, that we consider that as a Government we would not be justified in taking the responsibility of office without it, and that, in these circumstances, we come to the House of Commons and ask them to give us what has not been refused so far to any Government during the War—the powers which that Government, on its responsibility, says are necessary for the conduct of the War.

Anyone listening to this Debate, so far, would assume that we were discussing a purely Irish Bill, and I think it is necessary that we should keep clearly in mind that, however much our Irish friends may feel, and rightly feel, in regard to this matter, there are certain English interests that must be considered as well.

And Scottish.

And Scottish, of course. I certainly do not agree with any policy of obstruction. I felt keenly on the last Conscription Bill, but, keenly as I felt, I did not feel it wise to obstruct the Bill, and I certainly do not propose to take any part in obstructing this Bill, because anyone, in whatever part of the House he sits, who has boys there, cannot do other than think of the situation. I am certainly not approaching the question either in the spirit of obstruction or with any desire to hamper or injure the country. But equally I feel that the Government are making a profound mistake. They are not taking the right step, and this guillotine Motion cannot be justified from any conceivable standpoint. Now, on every previous Bill, so far as Conscription is concerned, there were long negotiations with the various parties. Whatever may be said in criticism of the right hon. Gentleman the ex-Prime Minister, his object, as he said, through all those negotiations was, as far as possible, to bring about agreement. There is Clause 3, which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House says is an important Clause. It is so important that every industrial agreement may be torn up under it. There have been dozens of conferences during this War with various sections of Labour, and they have succeeded in obtaining certain agreements. It may be said that no section ought to be consulted, but the common-sense view is to get agreement if you can. The result is that, under the powers of this Clause, every one of these agreements, if the Minister so desires, may be torn up by an Order in Council. In this matter, so far as our party is concerned, everyone is speaking for himself; I make that perfectly clear, lest there should be any misunderstanding, but I am at least going to claim that I speak for a fairly big section of people outside, and I know their point of view. I say deliberately that a guillotine Motion which gives less-than two hours to discuss the whole of the industrial action is something that cannot possibly be justified. It is not obstruction to suggest that at least we should have guarantees, that we should have safeguards. We ought to be able to-put down reasoned Amendments in order to protect the people we represent, and two hours is the amount of time allocated to that particular problem. When we come to the question of age, I do not know what the experience of other Members of the House is, but if they have got a post-bag equal to mine they must know the feeling existing in the country. Let me take two samples that came this morning, out of many others. A woman writes that she has had three sons killed, she has got one other son loft to give, and now the husband is to be taken, and she asks, "What does it matter to me who wins?" In another case there is an only boy killed and the father will be taken. I know the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that you cannot make a profit and loss account. Of course you cannot, but you can make a profit and loss account in this respect, that if you are going to dislocate the trade of the country, if you are going to cripple business, if you are going seriously to imperil finance, and you are not going to get against that something that is worth all this dislocation, then there is a profit and loss account of which we have to take serious notice. All experience shows that men approaching forty years of age cannot be trained for military service. I do not know if the War Office could give the figures, but if the figures were given of the number of men approaching that age taken into the Army, started to be trained, put in hospital, trained again, and put back in hospital and then kept doing odd jobs, and finally turned out at the country's expense, it would show an enormous waste. We have got to avoid that, and we can only do that by a reasoned Amendment, showing that it cannot be justified—not showing that we are against the Army, not attempting to obstruct with a view of not winning the War, but trying to point out that there isa better way. We cannot do it in two hours.

I want to ask the Government whether there are not more men in the Army today in administrative posts—not fighting units—who could be used than all they are getting under this Bill? That is my view, and I will be able to give figures to show it. You cannot do it under a guillotine Motion of this kind. On Clause 1 today we have not only to discuss the age and its connection with what I have already said; but we have to discuss the question of the boys of eighteen and a half. I do not know what other Members' experience is, but I know my experience of the feeling on this matter, and I at least, with many other Members of this House, want to take some part in a discussion of that kind. Without obviously attempting to debate the merits of the Bill, I say you are not giving enough time. To give a day for Ireland is not enough. Those of us who know the situation in Ireland feel that you are going to take more soldiers that could be used now in order to get a less number in the result. When you come to the industrial position, we want safeguards. We want to put down reasoned Amendments. We want the Government clearly to understand that Labour is not hostile in this War. We are not merely pacifists because we oppose this matter, but we do oppose it because we believe it is the wrong way. I would ask the Government whether they cannot, at least, give two more days to the consideration of this matter. Let us sit on Saturday if need be, and give us another day. Do not let it be said we want to avoid sitting on Saturday, or even on Sunday. After all, the men are fighting on Saturday and Sunday. What I am pleading for is not to have this thing rushed through the House of Commons in a few hours which may be ruinous to the best interests of the country, and may not, in my judgment, obtain what the Government desire.

I beg to move to leave out-the word "Three" ["Three allotted days"], and to insert instead thereof the word "Four."

The right hon. Gentleman told us that his proposals could not be justified in. peace-time, but that this was war-time, and things were different, and I am quite prepared to agree with him. None of us mean to obstruct the Bill—I have not the slightest intention of doing so—but we do want a full discussion. An appeal has been made on behalf of the men serving in the trenches at the front. I think that-is a very right and powerful appeal, but at the same time we ought to consider-that whatever those hardships, those are the hardships which the men brought in under this Bill are to suffer, so that that argument cuts both ways, and we have to-consider the position fairly of those who are to be sent to the front by this Bill. I think the time allowed is really quite inadequate, particularly with reference to one thing. Under this guillotine-Motion it is proposed to terminate the discussion on Clause 1 at eleven o'clock tonight, which is very much less than a day. There is the question of raising the age, and the question of the contingent further raising of the age. There is the question of the doctors, the question of ministers of religion, the question of thirty days' grace, and the question of substituting one Schedule of exceptions, for another Schedule. All these matters are raised on Clause 1, and all are very important matters indeed. The second day is given to Ireland, and on that there is not only the principle whether you shall or shall not apply this measure to Ireland, but there are all the-special conditions for applying it to Ireland, which are all Committee points. It is very improbable that any Irish matter will receive any consideration on Report, because the Irish Clause is the second Clause, and the new Clauses and the very important Clause 1, which affects England, will have to be considered before the Irish Clause is considered on Report. Under those circumstances I move my Amendment to give another day, and I propose to move later on that everything in this time-table should take place one day later than that which is put down by the Government. That would only in would the postponement of the Bill by one day, which no one can contend is vital for the country. If, however, the Government are willing to sit on Saturday—and I think every Member of this House ought to be willing to sit on Saturday—

And Sunday.

There need not then be any loss of time whatever. I should like to say this further, because I think that is hardly giving us enough time. Why not sit on Friday until eleven o'clock, which will give us a further six hours of discussion, without delaying the Bill for a moment. By sitting on Saturday from twelve to eleven and on Friday till eleven, you would add seventeen hours for the discussion of this measure. I think that is a proposal which in itself is quite reasonable to ask of the Government, and it is a proposal which I do not think Members of this House who take a great interest in this Bill ought to be unwilling to accept from the point of view of personal convenience.

I bog to second the Amendment

I rise, with the kind permission of the House, to say one or two words on a part of this time-table which affects a Clause, the subject matter of which many Members of this House interested in recruiting have been concerned in for many months past, and that is Clause 4. It is proposed that after three and a-half hours' discussion this House should be asked to sanction an entirely new method of getting men into the Army, to repeal large parts of previous Acts of Parliament passed after long discussion and the greatest care, and to alter the conditions under which people are passed into the Army, leaving future arrangements entirely undefined and with the decision of Orders in Council, which in practice means the decision of the Minister of National Service as and when he gets the approval of the Prime Minister. I am not obstructing this Bill. I am speaking absolutely in accord with the principles laid down by the Leader of the House in his speech made an hour ago. I am concerned that if the Government desire to make this alteration it should be made with a full knowledge of the facts and full consideration of the issues involved. I am sure the Leader of the House will bear me out in this, that so far. From opposing the Government I have supported each successive Government in every particular and in every direction throughout this War; and I am not in the least ashamed of supporting the Executive of my country during a period like that through which we have been passing. But it is not want of support; it is just the strictest discharge of one's Parliamentary duties to take up this position if one finds in practice week after week that the existing conditions in which tribunals work are of the greatest importance in getting public opinion behind their decision and in striking a proper balance between the needs of the Army and the preservation of the social fabric for the purpose among other things of helping the Army to keep up the War.

This Bill proposes at one stroke to abolish all the constitutional regulations and safeguards which at present hedge in enlistment and recruitment. It may be right. I am not arguing its merits now. But surely the House could not conceivably have greater or more important work to do or work in which, if mistakes were made, they would have greater consequences. In the long run, long though the run may be, even in Germany, public opinion will ultimately be the determining force, and we who are engaged in so vital a struggle surely need so to frame our relations that they may carry the maximum support with them as they are carried out. It is not only the entire alteration of this machinery, but it is that this Clause puts nothing definite in its place. Surely it would be possible for the Government, if the House expressed its opinion, to lay down in black and white in terms of an Act of Parliament the principles and methods in accordance with which the Minister of National Service ought to act. I am not now in the least arguing the merits of this Clause, but I would point out that it combines two most vital changes; first, the handing over to the Minister of National Service all the arrangements; and secondly, the striking out of anything in the Statute by which the public may not know what the arrangements may be, and what are the conditions in which recruiting takes place, and what are the criteria which they have to look to to know what they are expected to do. I hope the House will forgive me in taking these few moments is making this protest. I yield to no man in my desire to get into our Army every man who can best serve his country by being there and in getting them into the Army at the earliest moment with the least trouble and the least friction; but I do ask the Government to allow more than three and a half hours in which to reconstitute the whole system of recruitment in the Army, because every Member of the House knows that the older you take the men the more difficult is the problem who ought to go, and when, and in what condition they ought to go.

No Member of the House, sitting on these tribunals, will disagree with me when I say that our work gets more difficult every week and every day. Whoever does that work in future, the work will not get easier, but it will get more difficult every week the War goes on. If that be the case, and if the work is so difficult, decisions taken are more easily misunderstood and are more open to misconception, and to the alienation of public feeling, and, if that be so, it is not only right but it is imperative that those conditions should be set out in the Statute, that the Minister should be able to point, not merely to the conclusions of a Department of State, but to the directions of a legislature in these matters of high importance. If that be so, this Clause, which in the Bill, as it stands, occupies two pages, must be, and ought to be, discussed, not in the spirit of obstruction or delay, but in the spirit of practical men trying to work it in the way which is best for the country. I submit to my right hon. Friend, in a spirit entirely sympathetic with his objects in that Clause, that three and a half hours of Parliamentary time are nothing like long enough to safeguard these matters, and to get a Clause which will really be carried out with sympathy and with knowledge and with public support, and therefore, is the straightest and most direct line of helping recruiting in the Army. I earnestly implore the Government to give more time to the discussion of this Clause.

I had handed in an Amendment in the same terms as that which has just now been moved by the hon. Member (Mr. Holt), but, after listening to his speech, I feel inclined now to move an Amendment to his Amendment substituting the word "five." My Amendment had for its object to get another day for the Irish Clause, and it is clear that that is a very moderate demand. But the hon. Member made out an enormously strong case for time to-discuss certain English Clauses which are-given a rather subsidiary place. I recognise the point made by the hon. Gentleman who spoke for the Labour party, that an undue part of the time in our Debate has been occupied by discussion-of the Irish case. How could it be otherwise? Why was the Irish case introduced into this Bill, instead of the Government having the courage, if they meant to deal with the Irish case, to deal with it on lines and methods parallel to those adopted in the English case, and introducing an Irish Bill, and putting into the-Bill honestly the machinery by which they intend to enforce this law in Ireland as-they do in all English Bills, and giving us an opportunity of discussing the machinery for at least as long a time as-was given in the case of the English Bills? The War was going on then as it is going-on now, and when the English Bills were introduced the War was in a very critical stage. It is not our fault that the Irish question claims an undue amount of time in these Debates. It is the fault of the Government, who did not consult us in this matter at all, and adopted the course of bringing in this scandalous Clause-while giving us no opportunity of discussing the machinery and methods by which; it is to be enforced. Therefore, if I am in order, I shall move to amend the Amendment by leaving out the word "Four" and substituting the word' "Five."

I had better explain how the matter stands. The Amendment is to leave out "Three," in order to insert "Four." That proposal cannot be amended. If the House decides to leave out the word "Three," then it may refuse to insert the word "Four," and go on to insert some other figure than "Four" as a further proposition.

I assume that I shall be-in order in advocating that the figure shall be "Five" instead of "Four"? I have made that explanation to remove hostility from the mind of any hon. Member who thinks that we want to clash with English Members in discussing the points in which they are interested. I think that even the right hon. Gentleman himself must admit that this is a guillotine Resolution of absolutely un-paralleled severity. He has pleaded that it is war-time. We have been in war nearly four years and we have never had a guillotine Resolution before, and the right hon. Gentleman proposes this, Although we remember the passionate and ferocious—I do not think that that is too strong a word to use—manner in which he harangued the House against the guillotine Resolution when the Home Rule Bill was on. More than that, in those days, in his youthful days, he did not hesitate to threaten civil war as a protest against the guillotine and he did not confine himself to prophesying civil war, but he openly at that Table announced that he would take part in that civil war himself. That was the way in which he. used to deal with the guillotine in this House in times of peace. The House will bear with me while I contrast the method of procedure adopted on the present occasion by the Government with the method adopted on similar occasions in the past. I have had the misfortune to take part in three great historical struggles against Irish Coercion Acts of the most stringent character. We were told in those days that the matter was urgent, that life and property and civil order in Ireland were in imminent danger, and yet the first thing done was to submit an elaborate system of Reports and statistics from the Irish Executive and a full statement of the views of the Irish Executive. That was done before the Government attempted to submit their proposals to the House. Then came the Bill which was introduced by an Irish Minister, who gave full information to the House as to the grounds on which it was considered necessary to introduce this legislation. Then in those days we had many weeks of controversy before the Bill was passed into law, and there were violent scenes and many of us were driven out of the House and suspended, as everyone knows who is familiar with the history of those times.

In no single instance, in those old days, and in my time, was an Irish Coercion Act attempted to be passed in this House without first of all Reports from Ireland, or from the Executive of Ireland, explaining the grounds on which the legislation was necessary. In addition, there was always prolonged discussion in this House of those proposals. In the present instance one of the most remarkable facts connected with this discussion is that we have not up to the present received any sort of indication of what is the opinion of the Irish Executive with regard to this Bill. Even the Prune Minister himself, in introducing this Bill, did not indicate to the House that he had the approval of the Irish Executive, or, indeed, any Report from the Irish Executive, on which to found his anticipation of military advantage from this Bill—the sole ground on which it is to be applied to Ireland as well as to this country. I think that is enough, in itself, to condemn the action of the Government and to justify my demand that we should have at least one more full day to deal with the Irish case. Again, this remarkable fact ought to be noted: Surely one would have expected in such a case as this, in which Cabinet after Cabinet—three separate Cabinets, and two successive Governments, all including the present Prime Minister—have each considered in all its bearings this question of Conscription, under great pressure. The last time they considered it was in December last, when they had the whole state of the Western Front and the Russian collapse within their knowledge, and again they decided on that third occasion that it could not pass such a measure as this for Ireland. In the speech of the Prime Minister not a single solitary reason was given for the change of policy which he proposed. The least we had a right to expect was that he would have told the House what was the number of soldiers he expected to obtain by the application of this Act to Ireland, but he did not give a single figure. He gave figures as to mines, and munition factories, and some other figures also, but he did not give us any figures showing the number of soldiers he expected to get from Ireland. Later the Home Secretary airily undertook to give figures, and he said that he expected that they would obtain ten divisions, or 200,000 men.

I said ten divisions, but that I thought there would be more.

The Home Secretary apparently knows more about this matter than the Irish Executive. Has the Irish Executive supplied figures? I really think we are entitled to have some statement from the Irish Executive as to the practicability of this whole business, its advisability from a political point of view, and as to what is likely to be the net result. We wish to have this information because on the Bill we shall have to discuss a question of enormous complexity and full of details. The question I wish to put to the Government is this: Has the Government any estimated figures, such as those given two years ago, as to the net result they expect from their proposal as applied to Ireland? Have they any figures, also, as to the number of soldiers that will be required to carry this out? I am told that a large consignment of armed motor cars and machine guns have already arrived, and are going across the Channel in the wrong direction—away from the front. I submit that the House of Commons ought to be put in a position to know whether this measure, taken as a whole, is really likely to be productive of anything like adequate results. It is not likely, I believe, that the Bill will have the result which is expected from it, and I think that dozens of Members agree with me in that statement, though they have voted against us in recent Divisions, because they do not like to vote against a War Government. Surely, after all, one day more is a very short time indeed to allow. My point is this, that the Friday sitting will be a very limited opportunity to discuss so large a question in all its details—to discuss a Clause which, of all the monstrous Clauses ever put into a Bill, is the most outrageous. If you look at it you will find that it proposes to hand over to the English Privy Council absolutely the liberty of every Irishman. That body is to have power to modify existing machinery, in the case of Ireland, in any way they think fit. If one reflects upon what has been done with regard to the control of food in this country one has an illustration of how disastrous can become such a proposal as this which affects the liberties of the Irish people.

You have seen in connection with your food control confusion and disaster, which could have been avoided if you had left Ireland alone, whose people could have sent you across the Channel enough food to prevent half the shortage you have suffered in London. Yet here the English Privy Council is to modify, without any control, the whole of the machinery by which this Act is to be applied to Ireland. We all know that the English machinery is wholly inadequate, and will not operate at all. The Clause provides that Courts shall be set up, civil or otherwise, which, under the direction of the English Privy Council, may be composed of men, military or civil, just as the Privy Council think fit. Supporters of the Member for Belfast might be sent to secure men—indeed, there is no limit to the extraordinary, absurd, and grotesque things that might occur under this legislation, if it is passed. I repeat that one full day more is surely a most moderate demand to make for the discussion of the whole machinery under which this Act is to be worked. You talk about applying equal treatment to Ireland with England, but fundamentally there is no possibility of maintaining that equality. The fundamental difference is that in Great Britain you have obtained the consent of the people by ten to one, whereas in Ireland you have ten to one against you, and, therefore, that being the fact, you propose to impose on the Irish people Conscription against the overwhelming and bitter opposition of the people themselves. It is a very foolish act.

What did you do in England in regard to this question? You had six months of discussion before the subject was brought into this House. You consulted every representative of every section of the community, and then you proceeded by a Bill which set forth all the machinery under which this system of Conscription was to be enforced. That Bill came before the House of Commons, which was engaged upon it at least a fortnight, or rather more than a fortnight. On that first Bill the House had to consider all these matters of detail—machinery, tribunals, appeals and exemptions—and that first Bill was a very mild one, as well as I remember, relating to young unmarried men, and applied to a very limited section of the population. The next Conscription Bill had another fortnight, or a longer period, during which the whole of the machinery was revised and gone over again in this House, and all kinds of further exemptions were inserted, as I remember very well, for I took a direct part in the Debates myself. Yet you now propose to rush upon Ireland, in one Clause, without giving us any information as to machinery, exemptions, or appeals, a measure which is to be forced upon the Irish people against the will of their representatives, and certainly against the will of nine-tenths of the population, who are bitterly opposed to it. No wonder the Irish people and you cannot get along together, and cannot understand each other. I say that if the Government had really and honestly decided that this thing had to be done in Ireland, then they ought to have come frankly and honestly to the House with an Irish Bill, and their first duty should have been to put up the Irish Secretary to say on what grounds the Government had decided to bring in the measure. I hope, therefore, that before the Debate concludes the Government will make up their minds to give us at least one full day more, so that we may have some opportunity of debating the details.

The discussion this afternoon has shown that in many quarters of the House there is a strong desire that the consideration of this Bill should be less inadequate, than would necessarily be the case in the exceedingly short time allowed by the Government in the time-table before us. The Leader of the House said the Bill had been most carefully considered by a Committee of the Cabinet, that the proposals in it they regarded as essential, and that therefore the House of Commons should be expected to accept them straight away. I do not think he really meant to put the matter quite so high as that; but, after all, the House of Commons has also its duty in connection with a Bill such as this where the fortunes and lives of hundreds of thousands of our fellow-subjects are directly concerned. There has been, I think, a very powerful case made out, in the speeches we have heard, for an extension of the time of discussion. For example, with respect to Clause 1, it raises not only a question of principle, but also many substantial questions of detail. If this guillotine Resolution is passed now, without further discussion, at 6 o'clock we should only have five hours for discussion of the many important matters embodied in Clause 1. There is also the Irish case, on which the hon. Member has told us there are really many vital matters to bring before us. I think the attitude of the House towards this question might be different if it knew what was the general disposition of the Government towards the Amendment which will be moved when we get into Committee. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech was not intended to imply that they regard the terms of the Bill as sacrosanct, as not to be touched in any detail, and that even if there is a general feeling of the House that certain modifications should be made the Govern- ment is to be adamant on the question I hope the Home Secretary, when he answers, will be able to give us an assurance that on certain matters, at all events, the Government will be open to accept the general feeling of the House, and not to rule out as unacceptable any and every Amendment. Returning to the question of the time to be allotted, if the Government were able to give us at least one extra day next week, well and good. That, I thinks would be most suitable, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already told us—I do not know whether the Government is willing to change its mind—that it considers it essential that this Bill should be passed through this House by next Tuesday night, and that he is indisposed to consider any question of the extension of the time. If the Government adhere to that position—and I presume that there would not be a majority of the House to dislodge them from it—it remains for us to consider whether, consistently with that, it is possible to secure: the additional time that is needed. The hon. Member for Hexham and one or two others have suggested that, if necessary, the House should sacrifice its own convenience rather than rush through with insufficient discussion these important Clauses. The House is accustomed, when it sits on Fridays, to have a very short sitting from twelve until five. The sitting, to-morrow might, perhaps, if hon. Members agree that it is desirable, be prolonged to a later hour, which will give us twice as much time to-morrow as we should have under ordinary circumstances. Again, there is always the possibility of resorting in times of pressure to sitting on Saturdays.

I suggest for the consideration of the Government that if it is agreeable to the House generally both these proposals should be adopted. How that additional time should be allocated I think it would be better for the Government to propose. I should not like to take upon myself the responsibility of doing that. Indeed, it is no part of my duty to do so. I hope that since the suggestion does appear to command some measure of general assent the Government will agree to it and sit longer to-morrow, and have a Saturday sitting as well. There appear to be three alternatives open to us. One is to postpone the passage of the Bill by one or two days. To that the Government have definitely stated they cannot agree. The second is to pass the Bill at the breakneck speed which is suggested in the timetable which is now before us, and the third and only other alternative that occurs to me is that the House should sacrifice its own convenience and sit the additional days and hours I have suggested. In view of the gravity of the situation, on which the Government have dwelt, I earnestly hope they will not dismiss the third alternative.

I meant to make it clear to the House, in answer to an interruption while I was speaking, that, provided we could get the Bill on Tuesday, we were willing in every way to meet the convenience of the House. I feel most strongly that what we are asking the House now is a great deal. I have never concealed it. Under the circumstances, no one on this bench would have the smallest objection to sitting to any hour to which the House was willing to sit to get the Bill through. I am, therefore, quite ready on behalf of the Government to fall in with the suggestion of my right hon. Friend. What I propose is that we should sit to-morrow, beginning at twelve, until eleven, and sit on Saturday as if it were a Friday sitting; then we should have Monday and Tuesday to complete the remaining stages of the Bill.

And Sunday!

I should be quite willing, if I thought there was a general desire for that, but I do not think it is desirable. If my suggestion meets the wishes of the House, the Home Secretary will at once put down an Amendment to carry it into effect. I should like to make a suggestion as to the way in which the time should be allotted. I have been discussing it with my right hon. Friend, and I feel that as much time as possible should be given to Clause 1, and if the suggestion I am making satisfies hon. Members, what I would suggest is that we should have the remainder of this sitting for Clause 1 and up to three o'clock to-morrow—that is, from twelve o'clock, or at whatever time questions finish, until three o'clock.

There will not be any questions.

There are some on the Paper, but I was going to add that until the War it was the usual custom of Ministers not to come down to answer questions on Fridays. I am inclined to think that is a good custom, and it is the custom, at all events, that we shall adopt to-morrow That, therefore, will leave three hours, in addition to to-night, for this Clause 1. Then I propose that the remainder of the day be given to the Irish Clause. That will mean eight hours. I would point out that the claim made by the hon. Member for East Mayo is not an unreasonable one in this respect, and I wish it were possible to give more time. We are not able to do it in any other way. I think, seeing that we are giving more than what is a full Parliamentary day, which would ordinarily only begin at four o'clock, and as we allow discussion on the Irish Clause to begin at three o'clock and go on until eleven, we are doing all that we can. It is, perhaps, not much, in view of the hon. Members' hostility to the whole principle. Then we propose that Saturday should be given exclusively to Clause 3, which gives the drastic powers to which I have referred. On Monday, the whole of the time up to 9.30 will be given to Clause 4, and the remainder of the time will be given to the other Clauses, in regard to which I do not think that there will be any desire for general discussion. I hope that what we have done will be regarded as meeting the general wishes to the greatest extent we can. This Amendment will at once be moved. I will move it now. [An HON. MEMBER: "You cannot!"] I will accept the suggestion, and move it immediately afterwards.

I want to find out what is the foundation of the charge which the Chancellor of the Exchequer made as to the threatened obstruction of the Bill. The Amendment Paper of the House dissipates that charge. The hon. Gentleman who said he must fight it line by line and Clause by Clause has not even an Amendment on the Paper, and on the Irish Clause there are only fifteen Amendments, although the Irish Clause is a compendium of the whole English and Scottish Acts. Under these conditions, what is the justification for the time-table? I wish to state my own position in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman said that the justification for the time-table is the War Office. He is acting under the spell of the War Office. I could understand that at the beginning of the War, but now we are near the end of the fourth year of the War and we are coming under the influence of the most blundering Department of the Government. Forsooth, the right hon. Gentleman avows that if the War Office had its own way he would have instantly called together the House because of the failure of General Gough, although General Gough was appointed against the urgent protest of General Wilson. That protest was not written once, but twice, and with the knowledge of the War Office that General Gough never obeyed an order. This was the gentleman who mutinied at The Curragh, and they had not the courage to recall him. And now this House is having a time-table because General Gough has not carried out his time-table—where is his time-table?—and because of the incompetence of one man.

This House and this country of old renown for freedom is being placed in the most terrible position it was ever placed in for seven centuries. We are asked to chew the cud of this War Office time-table, which, the right hon. Gentleman admits, is the most drastic time-table ever proposed to a free Parliament. I would like to ask this question: Suppose we do swallow it and give the War Office the old bones which it is seeking of men between forty-two and fifty-six and the young men who are out in rebellion against His Majesty, and the men who are in gaols in Ireland and those who are prepared to go there, and the priests and bishops of Ireland, and the Papists in Mount Mellary? Every one of these, if this Bill passes next Wednesday, will be liable to military service. Indeed, there is not a Papist brother who, when he gets an order from his superior, who says to him, "Brother, do this," will reply, "Yes, corporal." Every curate in Ireland, half the bishops of Ireland, and half the parish priests of Ireland, will be members of the British Army next Wednesday. That is the Bill which the War Office is asking this House to swallow. That is the Bill which General Gough's friends want this House to swallow, and to swallow under the terms of a closure such as it is admitted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was never proposed in the history of Parliament.

I would quite agree, such is my sympathy with the conditions which exist, if the War Office would say to us, "Grant us this Bill, and there will be no more Goughs, no more blunders, no more retreats. We will be at the Rhine in a fortnight if we get this Bill." Where is the promise? Does anybody tell us that if we give you this Bill we shall be a bit nearer to Berlin at the end of 1918 than we were at the end of 1917? We were told by the right hon. Gentleman the late Prime Minister that the test of measures of this kind is, Is it worth while? The English people made an extraordinary demonstration of their courage and self-sacrifice on the occasion of the first Conscription, when hundreds of thousands of young men were taken. It is only now that we are beginning to understand the Gorman comment. "Yes," they said, "the English have courage and they have shown self-sacrifice. It takes one year to make an army, but it takes twenty years to make a General Staff." It is only now that we are beginning to understand that terrible truth, and accordingly when the House of Commons is asked by the War Office to take this direction and that direction from military cripples, I say this without hesitation, that there is not a competent man in any line of first-class business in this House who would not make a better general than some of the men that have turned tail towards the Germans One blunder has followed another, and we are now, at the instance of incompetents, to submit ourselves with bated breath and whispering humbleness when the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us that the War-Office was in favour of calling Parliament together especially to pass this Bill. The Wax Office call Parliament together? It is we who should call the War Office together. I should like to see done what was done in the Duke of Wellington's time. I would like to see this House making a searching inquiry into these dunderheads in Whitehall. Let us see the men for whom we are asked to sacrifice our children; let us see the men. test their ability, and see what their records have been in the past. I will not obey the War Office It has no magical sound in my ears. To be told that Parliament is to be called together at the instance of the War Office. There is more ability in the little finger of the humblest Member of this House than there is in the whole squad of them. If we are to judge by results, and that is the test. I think the time has come when these gentlemen, erecting their proud crests against us and telling us we must finish this question of proclamation by 5 o'clock and some other question by 6 o'clock, and must settle whether the priests and the Trappists in Mount Mellary are to be corporals on Sunday or Monday, should be told that we will settle all these matters in our own way.

I say the time has come for some little plain speaking on the part of those who represent the men who will be at the front while the War Office is still in Whitehall. Accordingly, I accept with satisfaction the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that he is going to give Saturday; and remember this. I know it is going to be given to English Members, and I do not quarrel with that in the least, because I cordially agree that the worst thing that you can do for the business people of this country and its industries would be to take away men of forty-five years of age up to fifty, who will be little or no good in the firing line, but who are absolutely essential ingredients in the conduct of trade and business, upon which taxation and everything else depends. Accordingly, when you say you are going to give Saturday to the English Members, I cordially agree. It is a most important subject. But let me tell English Members this, that they can get no satisfaction from the Government. I will tell them that in advance. They can get no satisfaction from the Government on this question of tribunals and of proclamations, because this Bill applies to Ireland. That is the secret of it. England is going to be injured as regards its businesses because you have not got the materials for setting up tribunals in Ireland; and the Government will not yield, though they pretend to give Saturday to the discussion of English Members. They will not yield, and they cannot yield, because they cannot, even the War Office cannot, devise one means of dealing with Englishmen and another of dealing with Irishmen.

There is not to-day an Irish regiment left in Ireland, and the tribunals which will be set up for us will all consist of military men. The extraordinary thing about the Scottish and English regiments coming to Ireland is that they all think they are coming on foreign service. They all think they are in a foreign country. They act as if they were in a foreign country, and when you are dealing with those delicate questions, such as the religious orders, curates and parish priests, the most bull-headed things is what they will do. It is necessary if this Bill is applied to Ireland that the drumhead courts-martial should be opened to deal with the Irish people, and accordingly the tribunals for England must be abolished, and in spite of the splendid appeal made yesterday by the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means the Government cannot yield to England because if they do they cannot have drumhead courts-martial in Ireland. Again, if you take the question of medical examination—

This does not really arise on the question before the House.

I acknowledge the indulgence shown to me by you, and I, therefore, will only say that if the right hon. Gentleman wants to get the Bill through it is not by guillotine Resolutions that he will get it through. Let him drop a few words in the sense of yielding to the reasonable demands made just now by the late Home Secretary, who asked him if he considered these proposals sacrosanct. There was no reply.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me. We do not regard them as sacrosanct. What I said on the Second Reading I say now, and we are giving this extra time with the fullest intention of listening carefully to any suggestions which are made, and if we can adopt those which are desired by any large section of the House without depriving us of anything we consider essential, we shall be glad to do so.

Three or four specific points have been put. The right hon. Gentleman has not said whether the Government would be prepared to accept Amendments, even with regard to the age limit. I think for English businesses the reduction of the age limit is absolutely essential. It does not affect Ireland so much. Then there is the other question as to Proclamation or Statute, and a third question is, Are you going to make rules different from all that Parliament has already enacted? For England these are the three main points. The right hon. Gentleman is in a difficulty. I beg of him to remember that nothing can justify these measures but success. Those who fail, or tie themselves to a Department which has failed, as the War Office has done, without making some attempt not to remedy service conditions, but to remedy the conditions of that body which claims sovereign power over the lives and souls of the people—statesmen who pin themselves to that body—are taking a disastrous step.

This proposal is described as a Government concession. I do not think it is any concession at all. It is preposterous. It is a grotesque response to the appeal which I made, which, indeed. was a moderate appeal, that Friday should be given to a discussion of the principle of the application of this Act, and the circumstances under which it is proposed to apply it to Ireland; that one full day of Parliamentary time should be given to a discussion of the whole of the machinery in view of the fact that in the three previous Acts applied to England we took a fortnight for each of them. I ask for one day, and you will not give it. Any attempt on the part of the Leader of the House to put his proposal forward as a reasonable concession is absolutely grotesque.

I beg to move to leave out "5" ["Provided that 5 p.m. shall be substituted for 11 p.m."], in order to insert instead thereof "4."

Might it not be more convenient to the House to sit on Saturday from eleven till four instead of from twelve till five? It would be convenient to a good many people. It being Saturday it may make a great deal of difference to those who want to get away by train for the Sunday.

I do not know that I have any particular objection to that.

I hope the hon. Member opposite will not press his Amendment. Seeing that we are going to sit on Saturday—and I would sit on Sunday, if neces-sary—why should not Saturday be like an ordinary day? If we get done by five o'clock, by all means let us go home; but, if the business is not finished, let us con- tinue the discussion. If the need is urgent, why not go on? What is the use of Members asking for it to be made convenient for them to get home by train? I would give the greatest assistance to the Government now that they have given us this concession. I would suggest to the Leader of the House to put down a Motion to-suspend the Five o' Clock Rule on Saturday, if necessary. What is the use of sitting on Saturday if you take one or two hours off it?

I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

I beg to move, in Subsection (1), after the word "subject" ["male British subject"] to insert the words "not ordinarily resident in Ireland."

The object of this Amendment is to make—

On a point of Order. May I inquire whether my Amendment, which precedes that of the hon. Member, will be out of order, or whether it is later proposed to take it?

Under the power which the House has just given to the Chairman of Ways and Means, he can exercise the power of the selection of Amendments. Hence I have selected the one standing in the name of the hon. Member I have just called.

But the Amendment which I propose to move deals with a totally different subject to that raised by the hon. Member. Will any opportunity be given to raise my particular subject in some other part of the Bill? It is a matter of considerable concern to many people.

I do not know, of course, what power of selection may be subsequently exercised by the Chairman of Committees, but I am quite sure that the hon. and gallant Gentleman does not wish to challenge the discretion of the Chair. If he will consult the Chairman of Ways and Means, or myself, at a later stage, we shall be very glad to hear what he has to say.

With regard to this power of selection of the Chairman, may I ask whether it has not generally been exercised in consultation with the Members who have Amendments on the Paper, and will not the course suggested be a serious infringement of the liberties of Members of this House?

I will endeavour to carry out the Order of the House to the best of my ability. The suggestion I have made to the hon. Member is purely on the question of Order, and it has nothing to do with selection. I have already exercised my discretion by calling upon the hon. Member who is in possession of the Committee.

The object of the Amendment standing in my name is to bring the proposals of this measure into harmony with previous Military Service Acts. I am sure the two right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the. Treasury Bench are aware of the fact that in the previous Military Service Acts any person not ordinarily resident in Great Britain is exempted from this provision. This provision was introduced to safeguard the rights of Irishmen coming to England or Scotland at the request of the Board of Trade, the War Office, or the Admiralty, to perform work of national importance, and also agricultural work. I have here a letter of the 1st March written on behalf of the Ministry of National Service, and in this letter he deals with the position of those Irishmen who are temporarily resident in Great Britain, and it is made quite clear that they do not come under the Registration Act and are entitled to exemption. As regards the production of registration certificates, before this letter was written the Labour Department of the Government issued an important notice to Irishmen seeking employment in Great Britain, and to my knowledge those notices, printed on very large posters, were displayed in all the employment agencies of the Board of Trade and the Labour Ministry in Ireland, and by those notices the Government have pledged themselves in the most distinct and definite way in regard to those Irishmen who came to do Government work or agricultural work in this country that they would not be Conscripted, nor would they be bound under the National Registration Act.

I would like to show the Home Secretary those notices, but I feel sure that he will accept it from me that it is on the face of those assurances that thousands of Irish workers have come to take employment at Rosyth and in the munition factories of England and Scotland. I could not imagine any grosser breach of faith to these men than to put them at once under the operation of the Military Service provisions of this new Bill, irrespective of what decisions may be arrived at by the Government in regard to the question of Conscription in Ireland itself. I do not think I am making any large claim on the Government when I ask them to accept this proposal, because substantially its effect, if accepted, will be to place the Irishmen who are temporarily resident in England and Scotland, and who are engaged in work of national importance in munition factories or shipyards, or works of agriculture, in exactly the same position as Irishmen in Ireland. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to recognise the simple justice of keeping the faith and the pledged word of the Government to this fairly numerous calling of Irishmen who would never have engaged in the work of munition factories and shipyards except on the faith of the distinct and definite pledges given by the Minister of National Service and the Labour Department of the Government, and also given when the first Military Service Act was passed through the House of Commons by the then President of the Local Government Board, who is now Secretary of State for the Colonies. I feel satisfied, if the Home Secretary can be convinced that these pledges were given, and I ask him to accept my assurance that they were given, on behalf of the Government, he will be willing to insert the Amendment which I have pro- posed, which will secure, as far as this class is concerned, that the Government will not be guilty of any breach of faith.

I am not in the least at issue with the object which my hon. Friend has in mind. As the Military Service Acts now stand, a man ordinarily resident in Ireland who comes over here for some special purpose is not subject to Conscription. Most of them have certificates or other documents to show their position, and to prevent them being called up for service on similar grounds to those who are resident in this country. I quite agree that the pledges which have been given must be kept, but I think my hon. and learned Friend will see that it will not do to adopt the course which he has suggested. May I point out that it is part of our policy to extend the Military Service Acts to Ireland. If he will assume that that will be done he will find the effect of his Amendment will be that all Irishmen shall be liable to Conscription except those in England, and the Irishmen who axe temporarily in England would under under his words escape service altogether. I suggest that the hon. Member's words should not be pressed now. The Ministry of National Service has sent out instructions that on the passing of this Bill no change shall be made in the treatment of Irishmen ordinarily resident in Ireland, and only resident here for a certain purpose. If this Bill is extended to Great Britain only the Irishmen will be in the same position as they are now. That, of course, is not quite enough, for even if the Act is extended to Ireland these men would be entitled to say, "It is true that we are liable to Conscription wherever we are, but we would rather be made liable in Ireland." In the event of the Act being extended to Ireland further notice will be given so that these men may have the option of returning to Ireland or remaining in this country in the same way as Englishmen are dealt with under the Act.

How will that be done?

The Ministry of National Service will give the men notice. I hope the hon. Member will not press his Amendment, as we cannot accept it as it stands.

Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to put down as an Amendment words to carry out the decision which ho has just expressed?

I shall be glad to consult with my hon. Friend to see whether words can be proposed which will be useful to achieve his purpose.

In Sub-section (3) of Clause 1 there is the following provision:

"Provided that the foregoing provision shall be without prejudice to any undertaking recognised by His Majesty's Government, and for the time being in force, whereby it is provided that any released or exchanged prisoners of war shall not serve in His Majesty's Forces during the present War."

That deals with released or exchanged prisoners of war, and persons of that category. We were so sensitive about German opinion and German susceptibilities in this matter that we put in a Clause to enable the Kaiser to sleep peacefully in his bed at night, but when a pledge of this kind is given in writing to Irish Nationalists, not Germans, who are ordinary taxpayers, then the right hon. Gentleman says, "You are not Germans, and accordingly we- must leave you to the tender mercies of the Ministry of Munitions." The French used to say, "Give us liberty as in Austria." I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, "Give us the provision made for the Germans." Even the drumhead courts-martial that you are going to set up in Ireland, who will know very little of law, will be disposed to give some recognition to words to that effect.

Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he will bring up words to the effect that all Irishmen who are now ordinarily resident in Ireland but who are temporarily resident here, in the event of the Bill being applied to Ireland, will get due notice giving them the choice of remaining here and taking their chance or of returning to their own native country and taking their chance there? That is what I understood, and it would meet the point, provided always it is clearly understood that any provisions which interfere with their liberty to return to Ireland are abrogated.

I do not pledge myself as to the exact words, but if words are required I will undoubtedly propose them on Report.

Why did not you say that to the Germans?

The next Amendment that I propose to select is one dealing with the passing of the Act on an appointed date. Perhaps I might point out to the Committee that the question of the appointed date arises in two different places with two slightly different effects. I would suggest that the two points might be discussed on this first Amendment. I am prepared to allow that to be done so as to avoid any repetition.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "at the date of the passing of this Act," and to insert instead thereof the words "on the appointed date."

I imagine that on this point there may be general agreement for, whether we are in favour of extending the age or not, we must all recognise the very serious importance of bringing men of this age under the provisions of the Military Service Acts. It was serious in regard to the men of younger years. It is far more serious in regard to the men who will be affected by the provisions of the present Bill. It seems to me far more necessary that notice should be given now, but, as I read the Bill, men affected by its provisions will come within its terms immediately on the passing of the Act. Consequently, these men, many of whom have taken positions to fill the places of those, possibly their sons, who have gone to the War, without any notice, without any warning whatever, and without being given any proper time for their arrangements, will suddenly find themselves coming within the provisions of this compulsory measure. That is a matter of very serious importance, indeed, and I trust this is one of the points on which the Government will realise that there is an opportunity of meeting those who are very troubled about this measure. The way I propose to do it is by reference to a later Amendment which I have upon the Order Paper, namely, that the appointed date shall be the thirtieth day after the passing of this Act. I am following precedent in using that expression, because in the second Military Service Act of 1916 the words run as follows:

"The appointed date shall, as respects men who come within the operation of this section on the passing of this Act. be the thirtieth day after the date of the passing of this Act."

If it was important to have warning then in regard to the men coining within the provisions of that Act, it is very much more important that the men coming within the provisions of this Bill should have due warning. I submit that this is a very reasonable and fair suggestion made in the interests of the men involved, and I sincerely hope that the Government will be prepared to accept it.

The question of the appointed date is one which has given us cause for a great deal of consideration, and we have really tried on this occasion to make a more satisfactory arrangement than the old one. The proposal is that there should be no appointed date mentioned, and, so far as liability for military service is concerned, that it should begin from the day upon which the Royal Assent is received. It is not contemplated, however, that all the men liable for military service under this Bill will be called up at once. They will be called up over a rather prolonged period, as long as possible, and we are proposing to fix the date upon which men should apply to the tribunals, making it so many days after the day upon which they are graded by the medical board. The effect will be that no man will have an appointed date really from the point of view of the tribunals until he has been graded by a medical board. If he is of a low grade, then the tribunal will be in a position to know exactly what is his value to the military forces of the Crown. We hope in that way to get more consideration for the men and much less disturbance of business. You had an appointed date under the Military Service Act, 1916 (Session 2), and you had the very important experience that everybody brought under that Act rushed to the tribunals within so many days of the appointed date. This, as will be within the recollection of Members of this House, caused enormous delay in men finding out what was their position, and many men went to the tribunals in regard to whom there has never been any question to this date of their being called up at all. I therefore suggest that the arrangements which we propose are really more considerate than the arrangements working under an appointed date, such as there were under the Military Service Act. 1916 (Session 2). That is our belief, and that is the reason why in the drafting of this Bill precedents have not been followed. It is really because of the overwhelming and crushing rush of men, many of them quite useless, as T have said, to the tribunals. If I might repeat the proposal, it is that there should be no appointed date mentioned, but that so far as the liability is concerned it should begin from the day upon which the Royal Assent is received. No man affected by this Act should take any action about receiving exemption from a tribunal until he receives notice.

The calling-up notice?

No; the notice for medical examination. We propose to give notice in two forms. There will be a notice by Proclamation stating that men, say, of forty-four, giving the year of birth, are going to be called up. That will be published in the Press and by poster. It will explain that the men are going to receive individual notification as to the day on which medical examination will take place. They will then know what is their medical grade, and it may be possible to tell them on the spot that there is no need for them to bother any more. If a man is in Grade 3, then, so far as the present situation exists, it will not be necessary to call him up, because we have got a surplus of Grade 3 men in the younger ages who have not been called up. There are more Grade 3 men than are required. If the man is Grade 3 it will be possible to say, "You will not be disturbed for the time being, and notification will be given before you will be disturbed." We therefore get rid at once of any anxiety in the minds of all the men above forty-four who are Grade 3. I do not say that will be permanent. I am not giving any pledge that Grade 3 men will not be called up. Supposing a man is Grade 1, he will know that within so many days from the day on which he was graded he will require to lodge application to a tribunal, if he wants to apply to a tribunal at all. In the meantime he will receive his calling-up notice for service. If he has applied to a tribunal, that calling-up notice will be without effect until the tribunal decision has been received. If it is a decision of exemption, then, as at present, the calling-up notice will be cancelled, and, of course, there will be exemption. If, on the other hand, he is refused exemption or he does not intend to apply to the tribunal, the calling-up notice will become operative. Under those circumstances, all the men, let us say of forty-four, would know that their turn had come for medical examination, and as soon as they had had medical examination they would be in a position to go to a tribunal, if necessary. That seems to me a very much kinder and very much more considerate way of dealing with this really difficult problem than the way we dealt with it under the Military Service Act, 1916 (Session 2). That is why there is no appointed date.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will be good enough to say what is the earliest date such a man of forty-four, to whom he refers, can possibly be called up, in view of what he has just stated?

The right hon. Gentleman has given a very interesting explanation how this Bill is going to be worked and it was by no means an unsatisfactory explanation. But where is it in the Bill? I have read the Bill through several times and cannot see a single Clause providing for this procedure.

Clause 4.

That is what I expected.

It is not in the Bill any more than the present machinery is in the Bill. The procedure under Clause 4 is simply administrative machinery to the Ministry of National Service.

So that instead of an appointed day all we have really got is a promise of a certain form of administrative procedure! That is given to us instead of the security of protection given by the existing system. I am not at the moment at all prepared to dispute the view of the right hon. Gentleman that the procedure which he outlines is more desirable than that under the existing Act, but I am bound to say that there have been a great many promises and assurances as to procedure under the Military Service Acts given at various times—not by the right hon. Gentleman, but by the then responsible Ministers—and those promises have not been made good. It is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that everybody in the country views with the greatest possible suspicion and distrust mere promises as to certain procedure being adopted by the Government. We have all found that they do not abide by their promises, and under the pressure of some alleged emergency they will disappear, just as under the last Military Service Act a pledge, equally formal to that given by the right hon. Gentleman, which was given by another right hon. Gentleman, that no person should be called up if he had already attained the age of forty-one before he received notice, was violated within a month or two. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that if we accept the procedure he has indicated there ought to be. some statutory protection. That protection ought to be based upon the provisions of the Bill, so that it would be something which the subject could bring into Court and say, "That is what the Government promised to do. The House of Commons accepted that procedure, and the Government cannot go back upon it now that it is an Act of Parliament." If we are going to waive the question of the appointed day—and there is a great deal to be said for doing that— the right hon. Gentleman should include the method of procedure in the provisions of the Bill.

On this, occasion I would join with my hon. Friend (Mr. Holt). What he suggests is most necessary, in view of past history. I would say at the outset of the Committee stage of this Bill that the condition of things which has prevailed since the right hon. Gentleman took charge of the Ministry of National Service is very different from what prevailed before under the War Office. We have had a genuine attempt, and a successful attempt, to comply with promises and far more consideration since the right hon. Gentleman took charge of the Ministry than we ever had before. There is absolute justification for the charge that is made with regard to the older authority. Those of us who have had to come between the men on the one hand and the War Office on the other hart; known full well how these promises have been broken. I would suggest that even it we may not be able to amend the Bill in terms by putting in specific statements of this sort, we ought to have it definitely laid down in an Order in Council, and I cannot for the life of me see why that should not be done under Clause 4, which provides in its opening words that all the matters raised can be dealt with by an Order in Council, such as providing for applications for or relating to certificates of exemption. What is the objection to doing that? As I stated on the Second Reading, we ought to have it definitely stated, and the public have a right to know, especially when the age is advanced, as it is now, what are their rights, if they have any. I am speaking with all the traditions of one who supports this Government through thick and thin, but the time has come when we must have it settled. In view of past experience and of the many pledges given specifically, we cannot concede great powers to the Government and pass over the control of this House by Statute or Order in Council to be laid on the Table without having some knowledge of where the powers of officials begin and where they end, and where the rights of the public begin and where they end. I hope that before the Bill passes we shall make that definite and certain.

I was pleased to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that he intends as far as he possibly can to make the calling up of these men of greater age as easy as possible. The statement, so far as it goes, will relieve the minds of men of forty-four. I take it that soon after the Bill has become an Act and received the Royal Assent they will see the Proclamation and receive their individual calls for medical examination. But I do not think that meets the whole of the case. The moment the Bill is on the Statute Book we shall have—in fact, I have had already — correspondence from many people. We shall have all those persons who come within the age stated in the Bill in a state of anxiety as to when they may be called upon to come up under the Bill. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could not give us some statement in regard to the people over forty-four years of age, so that they will know that they have some time to continue in their employment or their businesses. I have had correspondence from large employers who have already asked me what they are to do in regard to those in their employment, and whether they are to commence making such arrangements as they can to fill the positions of those men who may be called up. Can the right hon. Gentleman, in his administration of the calling up, make some provision, supposing you start at the age of forty-four, which would allow the employers of the men over that age, and more especially those conducting single-man businesses, to know that they have some time before them before they are called up, so as to enable them to make the necessary arrangements for their business affairs if they come within the higher category after medical examination?

There will be some natural anxiety on the part of a great number of persons outside this House that we should ascertain quite distinctly from the Minister in charge what the period of notice is to be under this Bill. The Government are now proposing to abolish the thirty days' period which elapsed under the earlier Acts before persons could be deemed to be enlisted in His Majesty's Forces. We want to ascertain from the Government quite distinctly what their proposal is with regard to notice in the place of those thirty days. Under this Sub-section all persons will be deemed to be enlisted from "the passing of this Act," which may be early next week. What is going to happen, immediately after that? Can the Minister of National Service make it quite clear to the Committee whether it is intended within the next few days to publish a Proclamation affecting certain particular classes or not, and, if there is to be a Proclamation, what period of time is to elapse before the calling up notice is to be issued? That is a fair question to put to the Minister, because outside we are going to disturb a great number of business men who will want time to make their arrangements, who are entitled to-that time, and who will naturally inquire, in the, event of the thirty days being rescinded, what period of notice is to be allowed to them to make their arrangements. I understand that the Minister of National Service desires to make this provision as little burdensome as possible to those affected. If that is so, it is desirable he should indicate now to the Committee what is the measure of notice which the individual classes will receive. Is it intended to call up each class by age, with a separate Proclamation for each. class, or to call up individual classes, or is it intended to call up a considerable number of classes all at the same time without separate notice to each? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to make the intention clear to the Committee.

I should like the Minister for National Service to clear up what he said about men being graded in Grade 3 who will not be called up after they have been medically examined. The Committee and the country would like to know whether, as soon as this Bill passes, those men who come within the provisions of the Bill, that is, up to the age of fifty-one years, will forthwith be called upon to present themselves for medical examination, or whether they will have to wait until their particular class of age is called upon? It would be far more convenient that these men should know as soon as possible where they are, and in which grade they are to be put.

We are entitled to have a little more clearly from the Government a statement as to how they intend to carry out the procedure which it is quite clear is going to cause an immense amount of difficulties of all kinds to a vast number of people. I am not under cover of saying a few words on this question going to introduce the special subject Which, I understand, is considered as not suitable or not sufficiently important to be discussed here at all, that is, the question of the proprietors of one-man businesses. I understand we are to have no opportunity to discuss that at all. I wish, however, to say that the particular regulation and procedure we are discussing at the present moment will inevitably involve a very serious additional and quite unnecessary amount of anxiety to this particular class of people. They are not unpatriotic. It is not that these people are not willing to serve their country, but the experience, even under the last Conscription Act has been sufficient to show that there are administrative and other proceedings which can be adopted, to which the right hon. Gentleman knows he was very sympathetic, for which the whole class I am concerned with thanks him. We want to know whether this particular class of people who are very largely going to be touched by this Bill, large numbers of whom are engaged in business and have no assistants, will have to sacrifice their stocks if they have not a proper opportunity of realising them or of collecting their debts, and whether their rent and rates will have to be paid. I do not see the slightest indication of any effort or attempt on the part of the Government in this Bill to make any arrangements to give these people any compensation for the sacrifices they are called upon to make. We are entitled to ask for an assurance that some attention should be paid to their special difficulties and some reasonable provision made to prevent their businesses being entirely ruined, their stocks sacrificed, and their places of business summarily closed up, at perhaps two or three days' notice. These are patriotic people who are willing to serve their country, do not wish to shirk, and do not ask for exemption; but they ought to have some reasonable provision to try to save them from utter ruin and from finding their businesses which they have spent their lives in building up completely gone whilst they are away for two or three months serving their country under circumstances of exceptional hardship and difficulty. Therefore I join with others in pressing upon the Government, in common fairness, the necessity for giving something like an authoritative and reliable measure of time by which these people may know what they will have to face, and will get some reasonable amount of time to realise their small properties, assets, and stock which with so much difficulty they have succeeded in acquiring.

Although I have the greatest sympathy with the point which the hon. Member has raised, I yet think, if it were dealt with now, it would have a narrowing effect. I will call attention once more to the definite question which was put by my hon. Friend (Mr. Holt). I think the Committee was greatly reassured when the right hon. Gentleman gave an account of how the Act is to be put into operation. We have dealt with many other questions since then, and it would clear up matters if we recall what he said. He said that after the Act is passed a notice will appear relating to men of forty-four. No one else need trouble except the men of forty-four till a further notice appears. Secondly, men of forty-four need not trouble except those who receive a notice that they are to be medically examined, and, finally, men in Grade 3 or men whose services may be' dispensed with for other reasons need not trouble, and even those who are passed as fit will have an opportunity of applying to a tribunal and ascertain whether they may obtain exemption or not. All that is very reassuring, and my hon. Friend (Mr. Holt) simply asks whether words will be put into the Act which will secure that that procedure will actually be adopted, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not be impatient with us for pressing him on that point. In connection with these Military Service Acts, long before he appeared here, we had a dark and melancholy experience. We had assurances from even higher authorities in Governments than he is about widows' sons and other points, which were not kept afterwards. Will he now tell us that some words will be included, if not now, on the Report stage, to secure that the procedure which he has described will actually be followed, so that it will rest on a statutory basis and not on the vague promise of a Minister which we have some reason to be doubtful about accepting?

I certainly think there is need for much greater clearness as to what is really going to happen. There is going to be a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty in regard to this matter if the old machinery, with which people were, at least, familiar, is going to be scrapped. If I read Clauses 3 and 4 aright, the Minister of National Service can practically do anything in regard to these Regulations which are going to govern the new recruiting conditions. It is necessary that there should be certain definite guidance as to what is really going to happen and what the procedure is going to be. The right hon. Gentleman said a man of forty-four will see a Proclamation that his Class is going to be called up, and will also receive an individual notice. But what about men of forty-five and forty-six, and so on, who have business interests? They will be most anxious to know whether they ought to be taking steps to wind up their businesses. They will be anxious to know what to do, whether they are medically fit or unfit, and whether they are likely to be called up or not. Pledges which have been given in regard to all sorts of matters have not been well observed in the past, and people have no faith in vague pledges. They want something that is definite. They want something in black and white. They want to know really where they are and what their definite rights are, and the House of Commons is absolutely abrogating its functions if it does not insist upon this. We do not want the mere bureaucratic control even of the Minister of National Service. We know that the past record, or a very large part of the record, of the Ministry of National Service, especially in its earlier days, was not a record of such a character as to secure the complete confidence of the people of this country in regard to its working, and therefore we want to have it definitely laid down, and Parliament ought to help in laying down the conditions which are to govern this thing. If Parliament does not do this it is allowing its functions to be taken out of its hands, and I insist first of all that the Minister of National Service will tell us more clearly what is going to happen; and, secondly, having told us, that he will take steps to embody it in the Bill, so that everyone will know exactly what his rights are.

The hon. Member is perfectly right in this matter. I have had some experience of Parliamentary pledges. Over and over again we have had assurances by Ministers and have been told that it did not matter, that arrangements would I be made and that in administration Acts-would be worked in a certain way, and invariably it has turned out that it was. settled by the strict letter of the law, no matter what pledges Ministers had given or what inducements were held out to ensure the passing of the Bill. Especially in a matter of such vital importance as this, where the liberties of an enormous-number of our fellow citizens are at stake, this Committee is perfectly justified in insisting that whatever understandings are given by the Minister should be embodied in the law.

I should very much like if the right hon. Gentleman would give some answer to the question, Whether the-assurance he has given us will be incorporated in the Bill. Why should not the procedure be embodied in a third Schedule? If he would give us an assurance, it would shorten the Debate.

I support very strongly what has been urged by so many hon. Members who have spoken. In Manchester, for example, there is a great deal of doubt as to whether advisory committees are to be continued. I understand the right hon. Gentleman has no intention whatever of interfering with their action. That is a matter of great importance. We want to know exactly what are-the conditions under which men will be called upon. J very strongly urge upon the right hon. Gentleman the importance of dealing with this point.

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some definite assurance. It is not unreasonable-for me to press it. It was I who moved the Amendment referred to by my hon. Friend on the previous Bill as to the age of forty-one. An assurance was given me with absolute good faith—I am certain of that— and I withdrew the Amendment. I was sorry afterwards that I did. We want something absolutely definite in the Bill to make it absolutely clear to all concerned that they may know exactly what their position is. I hope the right hon. Gentle- man will indicate that he will meet us in that respect. Further, will he be good enough to answer the question I put just now: What is the earliest date at which any man can be compelled to serve who comes within the operation of the Bill? It is quite possible, even on his own statement, that it might be only a very few days indeed.

I should like to acknowledge the way in which the discussion on this point has gone on, because it is helpful to realise what the difficulty and misunderstandings are, and if I have delayed in answering for a few moments it was because I wanted to be clear. I perfectly agree to undertake on behalf of the Government that this procedure shall be embodied in an Order in Council, which will make quite plain to everyone what his rights are and what his position is, on the lines which I indicated.

Will the light hon. Gentleman tell us precisely what he proposes? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] There are Members of this House who did not hear the right hon. Gentleman's earlier speech, and I do think we are entitled to ask the Minister what it is he proposes to put into the Order in Council.

Certainly. There are one or two points upon which I wish to give further explanation and, perhaps, it will not bore the House if I repeat what I have already said on this particular subject. The first question which every man affected by this Act when passed will wish to ask is, "When am I going to be medically examined?" My answer to that is this: Beginning with the youngest men brought under the Bill, we will proceed to examine straight through to the oldest. I cannot say the exact number of medical examinations that will be carried out in any one day, but we are arranging for a total number of medical examinations, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 35,000, to be carried out daily. That is about the limit we can go to with the medical boards. We shall begin with the youngest men brought in under the Act, and we shall publish a notice saying that men born in a certain year or years are called up for medical examination. They will thus be made aware that their class is being called up for examination and for service if they pass. They will receive individually calling-up notices for the medical examination. They will then be examined and graded, and they will be told what their grade is. If they are put in Grade 3, we shall probably tell them, "You will not be called up just now; do not bother." If they are put in Grade 1 or 2, they will be told that they are going to be called up for service and that have so many days—

How many?

That is a matter for the Order in Council. It will be seven days after knowing what their medical grade is. They will have to make their application to the tribunal in that time, and if it is found they have no case they will, of course, be called up.

Immediately?

We shall give them seven days' calling-up notices.

After grading?

Much depends on the rate at which the tribunals may do their work. If a man does not go to a tribunal at all, if he does not apply for exemption in any shape or form, he will be liable to report on the eighth day after he has been before the medical board, and there is no reason, so far as I can see, why he should not. If, on the other hand, ho has a claim for exemption, then I cannot say how many days will elapse before he is called up. His case will have to be dealt with by the tribunal. May I ask hon. Members to cast their minds back to the speech in which the Prime Minister introduced this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman indicated that we did not expect to get a very high percentage of men fit for service freed by the tribunal out of this body of men. I have been asked further: How will the older men know when their turn is coming? My answer is that we will, as far as possible, issue Proclamations calling them up, possibly by two classes at a time for examination. I was asked: How fast are we going to drive these men into the Army? I cannot tell. The position is this. We want to get young men into the forces as far as we can. We are asking under this Bill for certain powers which will enable us to grade rapidly considerable numbers of young men. We are asking for powers which will enable us to act much more drastically, thoroughly, and I hope scientifically, in the matter of the comb-out. If we get those powers, and if we get the men we expect—and we must have men of some sort—if we get the powers in that form, we can make use of them at once, and if we get young men to come in then it will be possible to go more gently with the older men; but if the powers for dealing with the younger men are made cumbersome, then we shall have to push on more rapidly with the older men. The moment we get the powers extending the age we shall begin the medical examination even if we delay for a time the calling up of the men. It is clearly in their interest that they should know, as soon as possible, what their position is. I will certainly undertake to arrange that there shall be no delay in getting the medical examination of these men pushed on, and we will keep it going as rapidly as we can get a medical examination satisfactory to ourselves. I have also been asked if the Orders in Council will be laid upon the Table of the House. Now, these Orders will be tribunal procedure regulations which do not require to he laid upon the Table, but I will undertake to embody in them the procedure which I have outlined to the House.

What about the Advisory Committees?

I have allowed the Debate to travel a long way from the Amendment, and on the whole we have had a businesslike discussion, but I do not think that these further questions arise here.

I do not quite understand how long a man will have in which to apply to a tribunal. It seems to me possible that if a man appeals and the case is heard and a decision given against him, at once he might be called up within a week of the passing of this Act. In the case of men with small businesses I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not wish the Act to work in that way. But he has not made it clear what would happen to a man who applied to a tribunal and whose appeal was rejected. This is a most important point, because there are a large number of men whose cases will be very hard because they are the men with small businesses. I support very strongly the appeal made on their behalf by my hon. Friend (Sir W. Rutherford). These men will appeal to the tribunal. They will naturally think they have a very strong case, although the tribunal may not agree with them, and it is very desirable the right hon. Gentleman should give some guarantee to them that, if their appeal fails, they will have allowed them a reasonable time in which to close up their businesses after the tribunal has reported. The right hon. Gentleman said a good deal depended upon what the young men did, and how many young men he got. The information I have is that the young men am getting him out of his difficulty. I heard from Nottingham to-day that the colliers there had balloted on the basis of supplying 100,000 men from the whole industry. The men who balloted and won in the ballot, and who therefore are not to be called up, are, I am told, walking into the recruiting offices to-day because they know their country wants them. That is the spirit they are displaying, and I am sure the older men will likewise display that spirit. But the older men are not wanted and cannot be wanted in the same hurry as the younger men. They will take a much longer time to train. A young man can really be made available almost immediately, but it will be a serious matter for these older men, and I do not think there is any necessity for calling them up within a week or ten days. Those who have small businesses should be guaranteed a reasonable time, say something like a minimum of one month, in which to make their arrangements. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will sympathetically consider their case.

I should like to endorse the appeal made by the last speaker, and to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that if only an interval of seven day is to be allowed appeals will certainly be lodged, if only with the object of lengthening the period. I think it would be very much better for the right hon. Gentleman to lay down in his Regulations a definite period within which a man will not be called up—say, thirty days— and at the same time he should also make it clear that the appeal must be lodged within seven days. I would like to put this point very strongly, that terrible and almost incredible hardship will be inflicted, particularly on small tradesmen and on men holding subordinate positions in largo businesses, unless they have time to make their personal arrangements or their arrangements with the firm by which they are employed. Those arrangements could not all be made within a period of seven days. We all know how difficult it is to carry on business at the present moment. Staffs have been depleted, men actuated by patriotism and consideration for the national interest have reduced their staffs to a minimum, and in some professions and businesses it is practically impossible to replace the men. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it will be much better, even in his own interest, if he allows the thirty days from the medical examination, but stipulating that the appeal must be entered shortly.

I should very much like to emphasise the point made by the last speaker. I think he is absolutely right in regard to the tribunals. The right hon. Gentleman will find the tribunals will be choked with appeals unless some definite time is given to these older men to make the necessary arrangements for their businesses. He said in his speech that he hoped to get some of them almost immediately when they were examined, because unless there was a case to go to the tribunal they would be available immediately. That is so, but unless there is time to put their businesses in order—and the right hon. Gentleman is dealing with a class of men who have businesses to put in order—they will appeal, the tribunals will be choked, and there will be much more delay than if the right hon. Gentleman gave a reasonable period to these men to make their arrangements. In the interests of the smooth working of the Act, therefore, and because I am sure he desires to relieve these men as much as he can, both the men who are to go and the men who are to remain, I appeal to him to meet the wishes which have been expressed from all parts of the House by Members who are in communication with their constituents, and who are really terribly anxious at the present time that the Bill should be adopted.

When the Minister last addressed the House he referred to a statement made by the Prime Minister as to the percentage that would be called up tinder this new age limit. The Prime Minister mentioned 7 per cent.

No; that was for the Army.

Will my right hon. Friend allow me to continue? The Prime Minister said 7 per cent. Be also added 7 per cent for the fighting forces. That has created a considerable amount of confusion throughout the country, and as I understand it—perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong— when the Prime Minister said 7 per cent. for the fighting forces it is only for the fighting forces that anyone will be called up under this Act. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I think it would be desirable if the Minister would say to what the Prime Minister alluded when he said 7 per cent. for the fighting forces, and whether he meant to say 7 per cent. of the number that will be embodied in the Army, in no matter what capacity, under this extension of the age limit.

In any case, what I understood the Prime Minister to say was not that 7 per cent. would be called up, but that 7 per cent. would succeed in reaching the Army, although in order to get the 7 per cent. for the Army a very much larger percentage would have to be called up, because of the number of rejections.

On a point of Order. In view of the limited time we have for the discussion of this Bill, is this discussion really relevant to the matter before the Committee?

I think it has diverted very much. It started very well on the question of the notice to be given, but it really would be more relevant to later stages.

May I again press my question? I put down the Amendment as one of thirty days. Will the right hon. Gentleman state that no man will be brought into actual service under thirty days after the passing of the Act? If he will do that he will relieve our minds to a very great extent indeed, and I hope sincerely that he can.

I do not want to mislead people into the belief that the time is going to be very short, because for some of them it may be very long, and that would be creating a very great and unnecessary alarm I have tried, there-fare, to avoid giving a short period, because at most that will affect a few individuals. Let us just think what the machine has to do. It has to begin by getting out the notice lists, then the individual notices, then to examine medically, then to call up. These things do not happen in a moment. Supposing I said we will begin to call up a fortnight after the passing of the Act. "Would not that send a shiver through the whole group of men of these ages, who would say, "We are all going to be called up in a fortnight"? I am quite prepared to say, if that is satisfactory, that we will not begin before a fortnight, because we cannot. The short period stated would really, I think. cause unrest I expect the earliest possible date at which the machinery will be working to be approximately twenty-one days after the passing of the Act, if we force it as hard as we can.

That is a minimum of twenty-one days.

There was a point pressed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. L. Jones) that we should allow a period, as I understood, between medical examination and the calling up for service. The period was suggested of some thirty days, with seven days for notice. Is that reasonable? If you think of the man who has a business of his own, I agree it is—most reasonable; but if you think of something that is much more numerous in the country—the man who has no business at all, but who is either playing golf or is an employed person on a weekly wage—there are a very large number of men who have no homes, who move about the country from place to place, and to talk about giving these men thirty days from the date of their medical examination to the date of their calling up is to talk of giving them exemption for months, because they would vanish into thin air. What we have at present is a system whereby a man goes to a tribunal if he wants time, and the tribunal says no extension if they think not, or, if they do, fifteen, thirty, or sixty days, or whatever it may be, may be given. I think that is better.

I object to the junior Member for the Ministry decrying any further explanation. Is the right hon. Gentleman dealing with the whole class of mankind, or only with the men who are now for the first time, at the age of forty-two or upwards, coming into the purview of this Bill? If he is thinking, as I hope he is, of the men who have never been made subject to the Military Service Acts, and who are now proposed to be brought in, he can give a greater scope, and time, and assurance on these points, because he has admittedly a large number of young men under the comb-out to occupy the medical authorities and to provide for to begin with. It he has in his mind when he is making these observations the men of over forty-two I have nothing to say except that I wish he could have given a longer time. If he is thinking of the number we shall get in altogether who have hitherto been within the Military Service Acts, but protected by certificates, I think he can give a definite pledge for a longer time to the older men who come in for the first time.

In view of the assurances given by the right hon. Gentleman. and his promise that they shall be incorporated in the Order in Council, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words "fifty-one" ["age of fifty-one years"], and to insert instead thereof the words "forty-eight."

I move this Amendment out of no hostility to the Government, but from a firm conviction that men between the ages of forty-eight and fifty-one can render much more valuable national service in trade and in agriculture than they could possibly do in the Army. The very fact of their advanced age, which has disqualified them from being available for the Army has furnished them with an experience in civil life that is indispensable in training both male and female recruits to fulfil the functions which have hitherto been transacted by the men who will be called up under the Bill. I would point out that certain of these men are owners of single businesses, and it would be extremely serious to take them from those little businesses, when they are not, because of age, fitted for the fighting line. More than that, some of these men have sons at the front at the present moment. They are holding the fort, hoping their boys will come back. Surely, as it is not necessary to have these men for active service, they could be left where they are in the interests of their families, and in the interests, I think, of the maintenance of their little businesses and trade. We have been reminded of the importance of keeping up the food supply. Many of these men are engaged on food production. They are indispensable because of their experience in training women and others to take the place of younger men who will be taken away under this measure. These men of mature years are indispensable in training recruits to take their places in civil occupations. Again, some of them are wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and harness-makers, and are doing work absolutely necessary in order that the implements of husbandry may be provided to enable farmers to develop to the utmost possible extent the production of food. From every point of view—we heard from the Prime Minister the other day that it was only estimated that some 7 per cent. of the man above the age of forty-two would be required for the fighting line— surely we might very well confine the age to men below forty-eight. There would then be a sufficient number to do the auxiliary work of the Army, and we should leave a considerable number of men. in civil life who are indispensable in carrying on the industries of the country. There is a very strong feeling throughout the country that the age of fifty-one is unnecessarily high, and I do appeal to the Government to accept my Amendment.

On a point of Order. I should like to know, Mr. Whitley, what your ruling is on this Amendment. There arc other Amendments on the Paper dealing with an age less than that in the Amendment now before the Committee. Are we to understand that a decision on this will rule out any age less than that in this Amendment, or do you propose to take each Amendment separately?

The position is this: the first Amendment is to leave out fifty-one in order to insert forty-eight. If the Committee decides against fifty-one, that leaves a blank in the. Bill. The Committee can decide whether it will insert first of all forty-eight, and if that is decided in the negative, then some hon. Member can propose forty-five or some other lower figure.

That is the difficulty. If this Amendment is not carried, according to that ruling, fifty-one is left in the Bill, and that rules out any age less than that.

That only means that the Committee decides the age is to be fifty-one. If the Committee so decides that disposes of the question.

The next Question you would put from the Chair would be, "That forty-eight stand part."

No. "That forty-eight be there inserted."

When you put the Question, "That forty-eight be there inserted," is it not in order for any Member to move, "That forty-five be there inserted"?

I think not, because it is only a single word. You cannot amend fifty-one by leaving out part of it. I think you must follow the ordinary practice. The Committee, by the by, may discuss the various proposed substitutes on this first Amendment.

Supposing fifty-one does not stand part and something has got to be inserted, and a Member proposes to insert forty-eight, is it not in order to move an Amendment to insert forty-five instead of forty-eight?

A further Amendment may be moved when the question is disposed of.

I understand your ruling to be that forty-eight must first be disposed of by the Committee, and if the Committee decides against forty-eight something else must be moved.

assented.

I rise to support this Amendment and the very moderate appeal just made by the hon. Member opposite. I think, as he has well said, there is a strong feeling in the country and a very strong feeling in the City of London in connection with small businesses which was so powerfully supported by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith), and also emphasised by the right hon. Gentleman the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir D. Maclean). We are very glad to see the Prime Minister in his place, and perhaps he has come in to make that concession which we all desire. I am sure this is one of the most important questions in the whole Bill. Perhaps I may quote one or two sentences from the speech of the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means. He said:

"With regard to men aired thirty-nine to forty-one who have been coming before us lately, we have a most in Variably subjected them, if they have not had any recent medical test, to grading under the new medical system, and experience has shown that in the large majority of cases these men, Grade A or Grade 2, have come back to Grade 3.… Applying the test of such experience as we have had, I do not think you will get from those men more than 3 per cent. of anything approaching real military value. You will be blocked up, overladen, and crushed down with a fresh avalanche of Grade 3 men, mostly altogether unfit."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th April, 1918, col 1491.]

I think that evidence, coming from so powerful a quarter—from a man who, I think, is second to none in experience of tribunal work—ought to carry great weight with the Prime Minister and the Government. We know how impartial the right hon. Gentleman has been in his judgments as chairman of that tribunal, and any evidence coming from him must carry great weight indeed. I pass from that point to the point which was touched on by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, and that is in reference to men in single businesses I think what he said will be endorsed by many Members who know from actual experience to-day in the City of London, and many great industrial cities, that there are hundreds of cases where men are carrying on these businesses, engaged in export trade or some other trade, who have seen their staffs depleted, have sent their own sons to the War, most of their clerks have gone, and now, under this Bill, many of those men themselves will have to go. What will happen to their wives and families? There is no great military value attached to these men. Many, in addition to attending to their businesses single-handed, are doing the work of special constables at all hours of the night, and I do not believe there are a vast number of men between the ages mentioned in the Bill who are shirking and doing nothing in the service of their country. Many of them, when approaching the age of fifty, hoping to retire from active business, have had single-handed to carry on those businesses which are essential to the commerce of our people.

I will submit a few figures which, I think, should make us pause before we again unduly undermine or cripple in any way the great industrial trade and commerce of this country. Let me just give the figures of our export and import trade taken from the Board of Trade. Return for 1916. They are, briefly, that the import trade in 1916 amounted to some £948,000,000, and the exports to.£603,000,000. I think I am well within the mark in estimating our Government purchases of munitions and so forth at £150,000,000 from the United States of America We get, then, an excess of imports of nearly £500,000,000 for 1916. What is the position to-day of our trade from which you are going to take away the men who are able to maintain it? Our imports for 1917 amounted to £1,000,000,000. Our exports amounted to only £594,000,000. Again, estimating £150,000,000 for Government purchases, there is an excess of imports of something like £620,000,000 last year. I quite agree that we are in a period of great stress. Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the military advantage of taking these men, which is comparatively trivial, outweighs the importance, which he has pointed out in his own speeches, of maintaining our industrial position and our exchange? Does he think it wise unduly to endanger the maintenance of our industrial fabric by taking away this paltry number of men, who are helping to maintain it, in face of those figures which have been accentuated this year and are bound to be accentuated. On this matter of export businesses I may give a humble contribution from my own experience. I happen to be chairman of a great Australian house. We cannot continue our export business this year simply because we cannot get ships. Many others are in the same position. We do not complain because we know that ships are demanded for the American traffic to bring the imports over to this country. Therefore we want to maintain, if we can, those businesses on which our export trade depends, because if you take away the men you deplete your businesses and undermine the fabric of your trade and do something which will yield very little military value, but do great injury to the fabric of trade and industry on which the finance and the carrying on of the War depend.

I want to press this Amendment on the Government with all the force I can command. I think it one of the most important, probably the most important, that can come before the House in the discussion of this Bill. The Prime Minister told us that only 7 per cent. of the men who are being brought in by this Bill would be taken for Army purposes. That I believe to be too high an estimate of what the Government are likely to get. But while only 7 per cent. will be taken, 100 per cent. will have, as it were, the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. It is, therefore, exceedingly desirable that you should not bring under this Bill more people than are absolutely necessary. Every year which you add means that you bring more people within the scope of that, uncertainty. There is nothing so bad for business and enterprise as uncertainty. It is not only the men you are going to take out of the businesses who are going to affect industry injuriously. It is the men who are threatened to be taken out and who will not know their fate for a long time. The right hon. Gentleman to-day said that he could only speak for the present situation and therefore all that he could offer is very small security, and every man within the scope of this Clause will feel that he is threatened with the possibility and even the probability, at an early date of having to leave his business. Nothing could be more injurious to the business of the country. I am quite sure that the Government, while they see the necessity for getting the necessary men, want to take those necessary men with as little injury as possible to the business interests of the country, and this Amendment offers a means of limiting that injury without seriously affecting the number of men.

If you fix the age at forty-eight instead of fifty-one the actual number of men you would lose would be very small, because, if only 7 per cent. over the whole range of age from forty-three to fifty-one will be taken, the percentage, as you reach the higher ages, must be very rapidly diminished. I know from bitter experience that, though people may say that they feel no older than when they were thirty, yet, once a man passes forty-eight or forty-nine, his years do find him out in a way that he little anticipated. Indeed, in my judgment, forty-five would be a much better age than forty-eight. I believe that the Government would get the great majority of those whom they will get out of the whole range by fixing such an age as forty-five. If they fix forty-five instead of fifty-one it means that they will relieve in the business community men, who are not anxious to escape from any unpatriotic motive, who would be only willing to serve their country in any capacity, but who, if they are going to be in a state of uncertainty while they remain in civil life, will have their businesses paralysed, which will do no service to the country. These men between forty-five and fifty-five are the main producers and taxpayers of the country. They are the people who are in charge of the businesses. One-man businesses have been talked about, but they are in charge of important businesses. They are the managers and directors, the men without whom the businesses are going to come to a standstill.

If production falls off, that is a great injury. But there is another great injury. We want a constantly increasing revenue. It is on these men we depend for raising; the revenue. They are our taxpayers. Therefore, if you take any of them one month earlier than is absolutely necessary you are diminishing production and diminishing the taxes which you will receive. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us yesterday that already the revenue is suffering. You are going to have medical examinations of these men, but the medical examinations are very imperfect, especially when you come to deal with the men who are past forty-five. Casual medical inspection by a board, however skilful, is not satisfactory. The powers of the boards are going to be very heavily taxed. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of 35,000 cases a day. Therefore, however careful medical boards are, the weaknesses that find us out in our years after forty-five are not always observable at once by a board which is a stranger to the man who comes before it for medical examination. They want to get the work done. They are being urged by the military authorities. I do not know what experience the right hon. Gentleman has had as yet of the hustling processes of the military authorities, who are anxious for men. The result will be that many men will be passed into the Army who ought not to be passed in. They will be in too high a grade, and that will apply more and more as the age gets, higher, for every year you go up the greater the danger is that more unfit men will be passed into the Army and the greater will be the number of your breakdowns, and, therefore, the greater the burden which will have to be borne on your pension list. The more of these men you take the greater the civil liability they leave behind, and that will throw a further burden upon the State.

I do not think it necessary to labour these points. They are obvious to everyone of us. They are obvious to everybody in the country, as our postbags are showing throughout the House, and I want the Government not to fix the age one month higher than is absolutely necessary to get the minimum number of men with which we can do. The right hon. Gentleman yesterday stated that by increasing the age you get greater scope for choice, and, therefore, much less disorganisation. I understand that already lie has urged that view upon a deputation to-day. I quite understand that point of view. But there is a point which, in my opinion, far outweighs the greater liberty of choice he will have, and it is that, in a Bill like this, this almost cruel Bill, the one thing to do, in handling it in this House, is to make its operation certain, clear, and definite, and of keeping the age at the minimum, for by so doing you will relieve the anxiety of other men while you will diminish liabilities, not decrease the revenue, and lessen the injury you would otherwise do to the taxpayer. In that way, from every point of view, you would, in the popular estimation, remove a great deal of the dislike of the Bill which exists, and I do submit to the right hon. Gentleman that the ease which has been made out is a very strong one, and if it is met by concessions it will rapidly relieve the anxiety of the House and the country.

I should like to do my humble part in supporting the reduction of the age. I certainly do not, like my hon. Friend opposite, think forty-eight is the proper age. To me forty-five is the proper age, and I cannot for the life of me imagine how the Government, who, individually, are exceedingly sensible people, can collectively come forward with such a proposal as this. It is against all common sense. Take men of forty-five and forty-six; we know, from our own bodies, what the condition of a man of that age is, and we know how unfitted he is for military service. The only excuse for such a terrible dislocation of home life, the diminution of productive power, and the great social sorrow which this Bill would cause is whether or not it is going to help you to win the War. In what conceivable way is it going to help you to win the War? Only one man in 500, who is over forty-one or over forty-six, is fit to be on the Western Front. You say you will use men of that age by way of substitution of younger men, or for the Home Defence Force in England; but my reply to that is that if you are to have an effec- tive Home Defence Force, you ought to have a certain number of men able to fight the Germans if they land in this country. It is no use to constitute such a force with men of forty-five to fifty, who would not be sufficient to fight the Germans if they arrive. I am a Tory Member, yet I conceive that this proposal is one which is open to strong objection on the ground of its seeking to gain industrial compulsion by a side wind. It may be right or it may be wrong, or it may necessary, if the country's needs are so. urgent and great, but if that be so, let the Government come forward perfectly plainly and openly, and say that they want men of from forty to forty-five to fight, and men of between forty-five and fifty-five to work for their country as civilians. If the Government would do that we would know where we are, but I strongly object to this proposal, because I think it is not in the interests of the country to get industrial compulsion by a side wind, and, therefore, I shall vote against the Government.

I think the House will generally appreciate the sentiment of the last speaker, if only for one thing more than another, namely, the statement of the Prime Minister that not more than 7 per cent. of these men can be used for fighting purposes, and if they are to be used for industrial purposes why do not the Government straightforwardly say so? I rather want to appeal to my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Service on the ground of an answer which he gave two weeks ago, in which he positively refused, on military advice and on his own experience—I am using the right hon. Gentleman's own words—and on the instructions of the Cabinet—on all those grounds, he positively refused, a fortnight ago, to agree to men of thirty-five, dilutees, and his reason was that from all the experience he had collected from his military advisers, men over the age of thirty-five were useless for fighting purposes. Those are his words and not mine. And, mark you, it was in connection with an attempt to effect an agreement. He was asked this question, "Surely all dilutees should go; surely men who have been brought into an industry should go before others?" That was the question he was asked. His answer was an impossible one. He said, "This is, from a military point of view, absolutely impossible"; and he gave various reasons which I am not challenging, because I believe they were sound and good reasons, and I think he will agree they so convinced the great mass of those who listened to him, for they accepted his answer. That took place a fortnight ago, on an occasion when we were dealing with men over thirty-five. Within a fortnight from that time comes the proposal to take men of fifty-one. It is all very well to talk about the position at the front. God knows, we are all aware how serious is the position at the front, and there can be no charge made that we do not understand it. Every man in this House understands it, and those who take part in this discussion cannot be accused of indifference or anything else, But the position is serious from the standpoint of moral at home. Do not forget that the last ounce of stength in this country will not be the military, but the moral of the people at home, and you are destroying that moral by the proposals now before us; you are making people pacifists, and, therefore, I put a further question as to what took place a fortnight ago. The Prime Minister, on the same occasion, met the representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers—I am not giving away any secrets—and several times in the course of the discussions he put the same question as was put by my right hon. Friend, who was present. He said, "Do you say that men of twenty-one, and so on, ought to be left in the factories, and that men of thirty-five, that are not of military value, ought to be taken?" That was the question which he put again and again, clearly indicating—and I do not challenge it—that he was using it as an argument from the common-sense point of view. I think my right hon. Friend said that there were a large number of people who have no occupation and no home. I do not know where those people are. For months I have been looking for those people, ready and anxious and willing to employ them, because out of a staff of 140, 70 per cent. have already gone, and the difficulty is to find anybody to replace them. [An HON. MEMBER: "We all have that difficulty!"] Everybody has that difficulty, and when people say in this House, that there is an unlimited supply of men wandering about the country without jobs and without homes it is absolutely foreign to the experience of anyone who knows anything about business.

The right hon. Gentleman will pardon my interrupting him, but it is a pity that there should be any mis- understanding about this. I was not referring to people without occupation, but I referred to the men, of whom the right hon. Gentleman has ample knowledge, who follow occupations which normally are of a migratory kind, men who live in lodging-houses and men of a class who fill the lodging-houses every night. He knows the class to which I refer. I also referred to a class of men who have homes but who are not engaged in work of national importance. We all know those people.

I do not want to quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman. No one knows better than my right hon. Friend that the very people he refers to are not the people in lodging-houses. The curious experience of this War is that that type are the navvies and others who have migrated to those places where you have put up munition factories. That is the type that used to be in the lodging-houses, but that is not the type that is about to-day. If the type to which the right hon. Gentleman referred is the type that you are relying upon to save us in this situation, then God help us: The maximum age in France is forty-eight. Whilst we appreciate to the full the magnificent-valour and sacrifice of our friends and comrades, no one will deny that you must not compare the French situation with our own. France is accustomed to the Continental army system. It is her first line of defence. In the second place, she is depending absolutely and completely upon the financial stability of this country. She is depending for various kinds of supplies, all of which are contributed by the very people that yon are now calling upon. That is equally true of Italy. Curiously enough. Italy's age limit is forty-five. Comparing France, Italy, Belgium, or even Germany, has any of those countries contributed a larger military strength than 13½per cent. of its male population? Are any of them doing it? It is no secret. Anyone knows that the basis of a Conscript Army prior to the War was 10 per cent. That was the accepted basis. At this moment we have got 13½ per cent. plus our Navy, plus our financial backings, and the other supplies that we are giving. The time has come when we have to consider very seriously whether this is the best way to win the War. More then eighteen months ago in this House, when we considered the position, I made-my first protest on this question, and I pointed out then that the great failure, in my judgment, was in not treating the nation as one unit. We had, on the one hand, the munitions people saying that the only thing that mattered was munitions. We had the Army people saying that the only thing that mattered was getting soldiers. We had all these conflicting elements, with the result that there has been no co-ordination from beginning to end. The men you are now dealing with are the men who are working under tremendous difficulties because of their sons and others who have gone into the Army.

I have dealt with the business men, now let us look at the working classes. I should like to see a Return of the number of parcels that are sent to the front every week. I know something of the sacrifice of mothers and fathers in that weekly parcel. I do not know whether the House understands this, but in hundreds of thousands of homes of this country there is a day set apart every week, and that is the day when the parcel for the boy is sent. I know the cost of it. I know the sacrifice of mothers and fathers. That parcel goes as the cheerful comfort which they give to the boy, who accepts it in that spirit. You are now going to take the father. You are now going to take the father from that household, and a pretty fine state of affairs you are going to leave in that household. The moral you are going to create is the feeling that there is no further interest in winning the War. You will be having your men and women saying that, so far as they are concerned, they have lost interest. That is the kind of thing that is likely to happen, and with no military value. If you are only going to get 7 per cent., why dislocate and disturb 100 per cent.? It cannot be justified upon any ground of logic or military efficiency, and I would beg my right hon. Friend to remember that whatever this House may say, there is a feeling in the country of deep and bitter resentment against this. This feeling will grow. You are aggravating it. You are not adding to the efficiency of the military strength of the country, and upon all these grounds I would urge that not fifty-one but forty-five is the maximum age you ought to consider. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to assent to it.

This is one of the most important Amendments that will be moved against this Bill, and we ought to have a stronger representation of the Gov- ernment upon the Front Bench. It is not satisfactory that when such an Amendment is being discussed we have the Front Bench as it is now. I do not know whether the Government realise what the calling up of these men means. If it is necessary, it must be done. I voted for the Second Reading of this Bill, and I am prepared to vote for anything if it is necessary to win this War. If it is necessary, these men must be called up, but I do not think it is yet necessary or that it has been proved that they will provide the material that is required. This proposal threatens to paralyse and to ruin endless businesses in this country. You are going to create a feeling throughout this country which, as my right hon. Friend (Mr. Thomas) has said, may have widespread effect. We have to keep up the moral of the people of this country. When considering this question you must remember that in Italy, in France, and in Belgium they are fighting with an enemy on their own soil. We are not. We are not physically and personally immediately threatened. We are fighting for high principles. I do not say that they are not, but they, in addition to that, have the enormous pressure of the enemy on their own soil, and it is easier to keep up the moral there than here for a war of this kind. Therefore, you must be careful that in what you do you do not make the position such that it is felt to be intolerable. It is suggested that if the age is high there will be a better choice. I have no faith in this question of choice. Once you give the Government, or those in authority the power to take these men they will take them. Medical examination is no protection. From my own office you have taken men with club feet, men absolutely useless for military purposes. I do not say they ought not to have taken them, but they have taken them and put them into their offices as clerks. The number of men we are going to get out of these higher ages for the military line is admittedly extremely few, but that does not mean that they are not going to take the others. They will take them. We know them too well. They will take them rather than send the young men out of their own offices. They have never cleared their own offices. They have never cleared their own establishments. The clean cuts in the Civil Service is to be up to twenty-five, but the clean cut everywhere else is to be thirty-five.

indicated dissent.

Oh, yes! Thirty-five in banks and thirty-five in insurance offices. All exemption is to be abolished under those ages. Abolish exemptions under those ages in the Civil Service. Treat the Civil Service in the same way. You speak of inconvenience. We all know what inconvenience means. I happen to be the chairman and managing director of a life insurance company. We have twenty branch managers in charge of great districts. What does this Bill mean to them? With twenty, we shall have three left under this. Medical examination is no protection whatever. These men will be taken, and they will be put into offices to do work of which they have no experience whatever, and which any woman could do. You could get plenty of women to do the work these men will be put to do there. They will be taken away from work where they are vitally important, and will be put into offices to do work that women could do, and you ought to put women there to do that work, because these men will not go to the fighting line, and therefore they will not benefit us in the great struggle in which we are engaged. This question of ages is going to be very difficult. We are not going to have the, protection of the tribunals which we have hitherto had, and it is vastly more important now in connection with these ages under the Bill than with the ages taken before, for every year tells, and I would urge that the age should not be a year later than forty-five. They will be taken away to do trivial work. It is going to wreck the businesses of this country. It is going to create a feeling in a time of stress and trial which it is very undesirable should be created. It is not going to increase the fighting strength of the nation, but it is going to enable the Government to keep a lot of young men in their offices who ought to be sent to the front before you take the older men.

I do not want to repeat the arguments which have been used with great force by my right hon. Friend who has just sat down, by my hon. and gallant Friend opposite, and by many other Members. It seems to me that this question must be answered, "Are you going to do better for the nation as a whole by taking men up to fifty-one, or are you going to do better if you put the age at forty-five?"—which I think is what the age ought to be. It is perfectly clear that a man over forty-five—I believe myself a man over forty—is no use for the front. I am told that in many cases colonels who are forty or forty-one are. not looked upon with favour by officers in command of divisions. If a colonel at forty or forty-one, who does not have the strenuous exertion which a private has, is too old, or at any rate is not as efficient at forty or forty-one as if he was five or six years younger, how do you suppose that men of forty-five, forty-six, and forty-seven, with no experience or knowledge of military life, are going to be of any use? Not only will they be of no use in the field, but they will not be able to stand the training which is given to private soldiers. I may be met with the argument that the men will be used for other purposes. I say it is not in the interests of the country that you should take men who are now actively engaged in business and transfer them to do office work in some canteen, or in some military office, either in this country or abroad. It is a fact that a large number of businesses at the present moment, without being one-man businesses, are being run by one man, because the partners or directors or managers have already gone to the front, and therefore you are leaving these businesses, or departments of a business, in the hands of one man. If you are going to take that one man away the business falls to the ground. I do not want to go into questions of figures as to exports or imports, but we have got to get the taxes and we have got to get the money. Is it not likely that you will do more harm to the country than good if you take away men who are doing useful work and put them to work which is not useful? I feel very strongly on this point. I do not know whether it is popular, and I do not mind that, but it is what I believe to be right. I sincerely hope that if the age is altered, the age which is inserted will be forty-five and not fifty-one.

I have put down notice of an Amendment, for the age to be forty-seven, and there are other Amendments for forty-five. We are placed in rather a difficult position by the ruling the Chairman has given, which I do not quarrel with in the least, because I know the difficulties of arriving at any decision when there is a question of alternative figures. I understand the position is that if the Government agrees to drop fifty-one and we are faced with the next Motion that forty-eight be inserted, that will be the only Motion that will be before the House. We shall have to disagree with forty-eight before we can get a chance of suggesting either forty-seven or forty-five.

I would suggest that the hon. Member who moves forty-seven or forty-eight can always withdraw.

I was just going to say that, and therefore we have got to arrive at a point at which we are called upon to decide on one thing or another. I take it that this discussion will aim at inducing the Government to accept the figure which will have attained the most general expression of assent. I have suggested forty-seven because I thought it was a reasonable compromise between the extreme views, and I hope very much that the Government may see their way to accepting that figure. I do not think it necessary to argue the particular merits of forty-seven against forty-eight, except that forty-seven is rather lower than forty-eight. I agree with all that has been said by the right hon. Baronet opposite, especially with regard to the value of the services of these men when they are transferred to some new business. The older man, the man who has got accustomed to his own particular job, and is able to carry it on with efficiency and perfect satisfaction for ten or fifteen years after he has attained the age of forty or forty-five, is probably quite out of place if he is put to some new job. Therefore, if you are aiming at developing to the utmost the productive power of the male population of this Kingdom you are doing the most foolish thing possible by transferring men of forty-five, forty-six, and forty-seven from the one job which they alone are capable of performing satisfactorily to some job where their energies will probably not be of half the value.

There is another argument which I think ought to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, and it is this—and it is of great importance. It is clear that as this War goes on the commerce and the whole success of this country will depend upon the proper extent to which we can make use of women's labour. Everyone knows that in almost all businesses women have been taken in to do a very great portion of the work, but in almost all these cases they depend very much indeed upon the direction of men who are accustomed to do the work, and know really the ropes which it is necessary to pull in order to carry through that particular job. There are hundreds of businesses where, if you take away the man of forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, and forty-eight, who is now directing, say, a score or thirty or forty women, that business will have the greatest difficulty to carry on and work satisfactorily, although they have the female labour; because they will have had to give up the male direction which is absolutely essential to that rather novel kind of labour which is now really saving the country. Therefore, these two arguments I put forward for the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. I hope, I feel sure, that, having listened to this Debate, the Government will have come to the conclusion that they ought to accept some figure lower than fifty-one. I venture to submit to them that the figure I have given, forty-seven—

Forty-five, forty-five!

If we can get forty-five, so much the better.

I do not want to traverse ground which has already been traversed, but I want to make a particular point to the Minister of National Service. The theory upon which, I understand, the Government has selected this very high figure of fifty, with power to go to fifty-six, is that they may have the largest possible area from which to make their selection. Their doctrine is that, by having such an area from which to make their selection, they will do the less amount of injury to particular businesses. There is something to be said for that theory. I venture, however, to submit another argument which, I think, is much more important than that particular one, and it is this: the supreme importance to the business community knowing at once what is the maximum age at which men should be selected. Unless you can give them that, unless you can limit as soon as possible the age from which men are to be selected, you will absolutely paralyse all business arrangements that have to be made in advance and upon which so much depends. I suggest that it would be very much better to take a lower age, even if that means calling up a much larger proportion of men. If you take a high age, it is obvious that you can only call up a small proportion. That means the largest amount of business unsettlement and the greatest amount of paralysis in business and in business arrangements. Therefore, I respectfully submit to the Minister of National Service that he should take an age that fairly represents that period of life which he may reasonably expect to obtain a large proportion of men, and I think that forty-five years is the maximum age at which it is reasonable to expect any considerable proportion of men. I speak quite dispassionately upon this question, because I have the misfortune to have passed fifty-two years; therefore, it does not matter to me personally which particular age is selected. I look back at by own figure of physical evolution, and I am quite satisfied that at the age of forty-four, possibly forty-five, I might have been able to stand a military training, but though I believe my intellectual powers are considerably developed, so far as my physical powers are concerned they have been steadily deteriorating since I was about forty-four. If I could not stand the strain of military service at forty-seven or forty-eight, I imagine that nobody else could. No one who has got beyond the age of forty-five, or forty-six at the outside, can possibly stand the strain of the physical exercises necessary to develop and equip a man for a soldier. That is the point I want respectfully to suggest to the Minister of National Service, that though a man at forty-five, forty-six or forty-seven may appear to his own satisfaction to be physically sound and fit when no extra special or peculiar strain is placed upon him, yet if the man who is past those ages is called upon constantly to perform all kinds of new physical exertions, then some vital organ or some muscle or some part of his body will give way under the strain, and the result will be that you will have disaster and physical wrecks. Not many men who can render and are rendering excellent service in commercial life would be other than quite useless for any kind of military service, and it seems to me to be an entirely foolish and a fatal thing to run the risk of sacrificing these men who cannot be of any particular use in the Army, but who ought to be, and can be, of considerable use in civil life.

A point that touches me very closely in connection with that great commercial city of Sheffield, which I partly represent, is this: I know in how many cases of partnerships careful arrangements have been made by which older men have taken upon themselves the entire burden of the businesses for the purpose of releasing partners for the Army. These are men who would possibly now be taking life very easy; yet they have taken upon themselves the full burden of large business responsibilities from patriotic motives so that there might be set free for active service at the front either their junior partners or their own sons. It would be a very ill-return to make for their patriotic sacrifices if you were to call them up now for military service. It would mean that all their efforts had been in vain, and that they had failed to retain business connections that they have made so many sacrifices to retain, not so much for their own personal profit, but because of their importance to the nation at large. Therefore, I must urgently and respectfully submit to the Minister of National Service forthwith to declare what is to be the maximum age, and that there should be no idea of leaving a margin of higher age from which a few might be selected; that he should select a maximum age, and that the principal reasons for the selection of that maximum age should be that that particular age is the one at which we might expect to obtain the largest proportion of men for military service. To go beyond the age at which such large proportion of men can be obtained will mean a sacrifice to the community out of all proportion to the benefits attained. I put forty-seven as a maximum age, as absolutely the maximum ago, at which any reasonable proportion of men can be made reasonably fit for military service. I put forty-five as a reasonable age, and I believe if we fixed it at that age, although it would mean many sacrifices, the people would willingly and gladly make them. It. is not a question of giving the least we can give. I am satisfied that we are all prepared to give the most, but we want to be satisfied that the sacrifices we make bear some adequate proportion to the results obtained. We do not want to make sacrifices in vain. I hope in what I am going to say, lastly, that the Minister of National Service will not misunderstand me because I have always been filled with great admiration by his work, but I do not want to withdraw men from one kind of business for which they are fitted and leave it to the discretion of the Minister of National Service to find them some other occupation which they may not be fitted for, although I am perfectly certain that the right hon. Gentleman will exercise the greatest possible care and discrimination, and no effort will be spared on his part to use the men to the best advantage. Nevertheless, I believe that these men are better employed in the trade in which they have been trained than in any position to which the right lion. Gentleman can transfer them. For these reasons I ask him to fix at once the age as near forty-five as he can.

I hope the Government will not accept this Amendment and thereby whittle down the powers which the War Cabinet, after considerable consideration, have determined upon as necessary if the Government is to place this country in a state of safety. To reduce the powers which the Government now ask for simply means that Britain will have a smaller number of men available in July or August to put on the Western Front or any other theatre of war where they may be required. The hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir J. Spear) and others who followed him urged this Amendment on the grounds that our export business to Australia must be maintained, and that we must consider the carrying on of business generally, the raising of taxes, and so on. What is the good of business or money or export trade if we are going to lose the War? We can only be guided by the opinion of the Government on this matter, whether it is good or bad. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] At any rate, at the present time I have more confidence in them than I have in the opinions of hon. Members of this House. What is the good of trying to maintain business and export trade unless we give the Government all the powers they ask for to carry out the responsibilities which have been placed on their shoulders? Almost every hon. Member who has spoken in favour of this Amendment has proceeded on the assumption that the Government are going to ruthlessly take men up to fifty-one and put them into the Army. That is not my understanding of these proposals. I favour the age being maintained at fifty-one in order that the Government may have the widest possible number who can be reasonably spared from their present occupations to use as substitutes in order to free men of thirty-five or forty-one who may be fit for military service.

There is another reason why I want to see the age kept at fifty-one. It is because if the. Government take this step and follow it up by a very much improved system of the Volunteer Force in this country they are going to have an oppor- tunity of using men in this country who will be allowed part time to look after their businesses and part time to train,, and in a few months they will become capable of serving for Home defence, and. in this way free some of the men whom the Government have now to maintain in this country. There are one or two other points which I would like to mention which. I know will give hon. Members who favour this Amendment a certain amount of argument. It is no use hiding the fact that there is a wide feeling amongst hon. Members that hitherto the Government have not taken the steps which they ought to have taken to make proper use of the men they have got. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker) spoke very strongly about the number of men who still remain in Government Departments, and I beg the Government to go much further than they have done in combing out those Departments. It has been my privilege to work in different Departments during the War, and I do not hesitate to say that there are there a number of men of military age who are doing good work I admit, but to suggest that they cannot be replaced is ridiculous, and much more ought to be done in this direction.

There is another point in regard to-which the public at large do feel a certain amount of dissatisfaction. We know in every corner of the country how wasteful have been the mistakes of the medical boards in putting men into the Army whenever were fit. I mention this point because I want the Government to stick to their proposals, but I do want them to' take very special care to see that in this direction justice is done not only to the individuals, but to the nation at large. I do not believe it is right, as some hon. Members have suggested, that public opinion in this country is overwhelmingly against the age limit being fifty-one. My experience, so far as I have been able to gather it in so short a time, is that people feel delighted to find that the Government are showing some backbone and strength, and are taking a bold line and doing what they believe to be right in the interests of the country. I beg the Government not to move one iota from taking the steps which they have suggested.

I have listened with great interest to the discussion of this very important point of the age. I quite agree that it is an extremely important point upon which to arrive at a wise decision. There is no more important point in the Bill than this question of the age that we should fix as the military age. A good many months ago this question came under the direct consideration of my Department, and we had to decide what steps we would recommend to the Cabinet if certain eventualities arose. There are a large number of possibilities. You can lower the age, but I do not think there would be any enthusiasm in this House for lowering the age. You can ruthlessly seize men of the present military age, and there are in the country at the present moment quite a large number of men of the present military age of whom only a small number are physically fit. Still, they are there, and they could be seized. If we go very much further than we are planning to go with the taking of the men of the present military age, we shall certainly do a lot of damage that will seriously hamper us in our war efforts, because there is no very large number of fit men you can take of the present military age without absolutely crippling your war effort. That is the central fact.

The next thing is this: We have no guarantee that this is the last battle. We have no guarantee that the War is going to be over to-morrow, the next day, or the next month. Supposing we said, "Yes, we are going to take all the men of the present military age," and we could do it under existing powers by pressure upon the tribunals, that would be only one of the hundred-and-one ways of losing the War for certain. You can lose the War by doing that just as easily as you like. Supposing we said, "Yes, we will take all the men that we want from those of the present military age and put them into the Army," and then the pressure came, the next thing you would have to do would be to move all the men you had just taken into the Army. You would have already hampered civilian work unnecessarily, and you would have to do a reshuffle in the Army. You would have all the waste, all the chaos, and all the difficulties which we have been trying to get rid of from the very first. I implore this Committee to consider what really we are dealing with. We are dealing with a most complicated problem that does not end with the passage of this Bill. The Bill has got to be administered and worked over and prayed over to keep this thing from going wrong. After the most mature consideration of all the facts involved—I may be right and I may be wrong, but I have had the services of the best brains that I could command or get to help in working out this problem—I assure you that it is my sincere and absolute belief that it is much wiser now to go up to fifty than it would be to stop at forty-five. I assure you that it is not a light-hearted decision. It is wiser for this reason: We are coining, as we all know, to the age periods where you have men of the greatest value from the commercial, from the financial, and from the social fabric points of view, but you really cannot persuade me—it is impossible for anyone to persuade me—that men increase in value, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, and so on. It is not so. There is no difference in business value, and there is no difference in scientific value, unless it be a slight deterioration between the ages of forty-one and fifty.

I am sure that every hon. Member of this House who has had a medical training will agree with me when I say that the actual tail of a man's years does not determine his age. It is quite wrong to think of the man of fifty as necessarily older than the man of forty-four or forty-five. It is really a perfect mistake to think that the tail of a man's years determines his age or his power of resistance. There are men of fifty at the present moment in this country—you will find them in the North and in Scotland, on the hills—who are absolutely fit. You will find men in Yorkshire just as fit at fifty as any man for the sort of work for which these older men are wanted in the forces. You have got to realise that, after all, we are proposing to take only a small percentage of the men between these age periods. The Prime Minister the other day said 7 per cent. for this year. That means that 93 per cent. will remain in civil life. Cut off three years or four years from the block on which the Military Service Act operates and you will get, believe me, the same number of men taken from civil life, but they will be less fit physically on the average than if you take the longer block. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That is really so. We will get the more physically fit men by taking the whole length of the block, and I assure you that you will do less damage to those very things which we all wish to conserve. We have gone into this, and we have worked at it, and I can assure the Committee that what they are recommending is, in fact, unsound from the point of view of the nation and unsound from the point of view of the stability of industry and of finance, and so forth. If the Committee were to cut the whole thing down and to say that one year or two years only are to be added to the military age, I should probably be able to raise as many men as will be raised out of the whole period, but if I allowed the machine to do it it would smash things in a way that you will not do if you take the longer period.

You would not have the same uncertainty.

That is the one argument against the full age. It is the one argument that matters from the point of view of winning the War. The uncertainty created and the diminishing of the moral of the country is the real thing against raising the age, and it is the thing that one has to weigh so carefully. I believe, by the arrangements that we are making for medically examining these men and by the announcements that we shall make with regard to men of certain trades who will not be touched at all, and who will not have to be examined—where we are clean cutting at a much lower age in an occupation we shall announce that the older men in that occupation are not to move; there will be no compulsion upon their staying there, but so far as we are concerned they are not to take any action—we shall be able to let them know very rapidly how these various blocks stand. For instance, where we have an order for a clean cut upon occupational grounds some year below the year of birth which under the Bill will become operative, those men will be unaffected for the time being.

We know what has been done in the past, and we have no confidence whatever.

I welcome that interruption, because I want to get at the mental state which exists. It is static, just as static as that box. The war is dynamic; it is moving all the time, and the whole time it is a problem of balancing between the civil side and the war side. It is a problem of watching the Armies and of adjustment all the time. And we have there the static mind. "We know what happened before." If it were possible to conceive of the whole thing as standing still, if it were possible to conceive of finality in the administration of recruiting which is going on, thousands of men every day affected; if it were possible to have the whole thing standing still, the whole problem would be different. But you cannot. It is moving, it is balance, it is adjustment all the time. I can assure every member of this Committee that from the sent mental point of view, though it is. nicer to think of no man over forty-eight going, and although from the point of view of moral there is something, indeed, a good deal, to be said, still I would assure them that I believe it is wise to face facts as they are, and to say that this position is best dealt with by giving the widest range of freedom for choice, because we have got always various sides of the problem under the watch and under the control to some extent, at all events, of the Government, and the whole balance is being maintained. Look at what is happening at the present moment for proof of that! Here we are combing out from the munition factories. I would like at this moment, although it is hardly on the point, to acknowledge the position now adopted by the engineers in munition factories. It is most satisfactory that while this combing out is going on, and the men are streaming to the Colours, production, I understand, is rising. That shows adjustment right back through the whole chain of processes; which are linked up.

It is utterly misleading to suggest that these other interests of the State, which are as great in their own place as the actual fighting, are overlooked. That is not so. There is no break. It might easily be produced A single day's folly in the central control of the Recruiting Department might produce a crises. There is no great difficulty in producing crises, but, somehow or other, we have managed so far to avoid having that particular type of crisis. That has been done by watching over, by balancing all the problems, as. they came along. I wonder if this Committee realises the number of men who are at the present moment in civil life who-have got nothing standing between them-and walking into the nearest military depot except the balanced judgment of the-staff of the National Service Department. There are over 2,000,000 men whose position in civil life is retained because-they are required for civil life, but they hold no exemption, there is no tribunal coming in, and there is nothing to keep them in civil life except the judgment and the arrangements of the Minister responsible for this work. [An HON- MEMBER: "Are they fit men?"]. These are not fit men; at any rate, they are not fit for Grade 1, but there are very large numbers of them fit for Grade 2. They are kept in civil life, in munition factories, and so on. It is because we have had the experience of the control of this large number of men and this large number of war interests, and because that experience has shown that it is possible to regulate it that we are doing it all the time, and we are doing it so that the essential men are left behind and the non-essential men or the less essential men are taken. I admit individual mistakes, but I am speaking of broad results. It is because one knows that it can be done now that I urge the Committee to agree to the extension of the military age to fifty.

There was a strong point made by the Tight hon. Gentleman who spoke about the position of the Civil Service and said that the Government was not combing out but was keeping unjustifiably in its offices a large number of young fit men in the Civil Service. I do not think he quite realised what the Civil Service has done and is doing. The Prime Minister, speaking the other day, spoke of the "clean cut of-twenty-five," and it was promptly assumed apparently that all others of above twenty-five were still there and retained. For months and months, even years, the Civil Service has been combed and combed and combed, and it has produced an extraordinarily high proportion of men for the Service. It has on its shoulders at the present time a load of responsibility which no other class of population of equal numerical strength is carrying, and yet it is giving men steadily to the forces. It is true it is receiving men who have served and who are no longer fit for service, but it is giving men steadily to the forces, and it is going on. It seems to be the general impression, not only in this House but throughout the country, that the whole of the Civil Service is a law unto itself as to which shall go and which shall stay. It is true that a great deal of power and responsibility has been left in the hands of the departmental chiefs of the Civil Service throughout, but there is and has been now for many weeks and months in existence a combing-out tribunal working through the Government offices, dealing with the cases that arise. I am sure the Committee will be interested to know the names of the two gentlemen who represent the Ministry of National Service on that combing-out Committee. They are Mr. Honoratus Lloyd, whose name is very familiar to the Committee, and Mr. Bettesworth Piggot, whose experience of tribunal work as deputy-chairman of the London Tribunal has, of course, been great. Those are the two members who are in an independent position on that tribunal. We also have arrangements for working with the Government Departments concerned about the taking on of individuals into Government offices. These arrangements and rules are very strict to see that men who are really fit for service do not get taken on. I will tell you the sort of baseless story that circulates about people in the Civil Service. Only within the last few hours I was told about an individual who was said to be hiding in a Government Department—I will not say which one—a man young and fit for service, a man who ought to go to the front at once, who bad never done anything for his country. He was one of eight brothers, seven of whom had gone overseas with the forces and of whom two at least were dead. He himself had never been fit for service and is permanently unfit. He has given up his ordinary civil avocation, where he was making a good income, and is receiving comparatively small pay in a Government office, and that is a man who is being held up by a Member of this House as an outstanding example of a shirker and a representative of a family of shirkers. That is the sort of tale that grows and grows. The way the Civil Service is spoken of is most unfair. I know no body of men who are more anxious to go, who claim more regularly day by day, "Let us go," and they have to be told, "No, you cannot go; your place is there," and in war-time that is the only position which a man should occupy.

I have spoken rather strongly about the Civil Service because T felt they required defence and they have not been defended properly. The things which are being said about them are utterly cruel and they are doing harm throughout the country. They are making people who do not know-any better believe that the Government is protecting large numbers of young men. It is not so. There are, of course, in the Post Office, among postmen and so on, young, fit men still who are being got out, and you have got men in the Customs and Excise around the coast. You have men outside who are still young and fit and are being drawn on, as other important industries are being drawn on, and the figures for these offices, which are big employing Departments, are got hold of and quoted as referring to clerks in Government offices. I have been led on to saying this because of the direct attack which was made upon the Civil Service across the Table this evening. I would beg of the Committee to realise that this question of the level at which they are going to place the age is not a thing to be decided on sentimental grounds. It has to be decided after the most careful study and consideration of all the factors involved. I do not make any claim to superior wisdom or knowledge but, after considering the thing in every way and from every point of view, the decision of the Government was that the best age to fix was fifty, and to work it so that a certain number of men were withdrawn from civil life up to that age, and that decision is based not upon military considerations alone but upon the widest possible consideration being given to all the factors involved. A right hon. Gentleman who spoke from behind quoted me as saying not long ago that it was absurd to take men at thirty-five when there were men of twenty-one and twenty-two available. That is absolutely absurd when you have the younger men available in the same industry, but when you have to raise a certain number of men and you have not got enough young men to take out without leading to collapse you have, even against your will, to go further and further in order to get the men you can get, and it then becomes a matter of administration to see that the older men are used in the capacity for which they are at least, so far as possible, suitable.

I think the Committee will regret very much the speech we have just heard from the Minister of National Service. Some of us were hoping that he had consulted some of his colleagues and that the Government was prepared to reduce the age to something like a reason able figure. He has not suggested even one year's reduction. Therefore, I think many of us will regret it. I feel very strongly indeed upon this matter. I have supported the Government from the beginning of the War for all I have been worth. I have supported Conscription and have many times brought trouble upon my head from my own friends, and even from some members of the association to which I belong. But I must say honestly That I am not prepared to vote for this maximum which is proposed by the Government. I have had some little experience as a member of the Special Committee on lie-examinations and I know the way many people have been treated in the past by the medical boards, and while I recognise that for some time now there has been a great improvement in the medical boards of this country I still believe they are far from perfect in their examinations. I can give a case that I had three weeks ago in Manchester of a man weighing 6 stone, 27 inches round the chest, aged forty-two years and four months. He produced a doctor's note that he had been suffering for fifteen years from a very bad disease. He had been rejected many times in the past. He was put Grade 3 and was called up within a few weeks. I intervened and fortunately the man was over military age. I said to the military authorities that if men like this were to be taken and the enemy were on our doorsteps they would be of no use in preventing them from entering the door. This makes one doubtful as to what many medical boards would do with the older men. I shall strongly vote against this Clause. I voted against the Second Reading last night on account of the age that is proposed.

Let me give another instance. Every Member of the House has cases of men who have lost one, two and three sons in this War. I will give a case that I have now with the pension authorities. A man had two sons, twins, twenty-three years of age. They were killed two years ago. The result was a shock to the mother which brought on paralysis, and the poor woman was in bed for twelve months. She is now being wheeled about in a bath-chair, a doctor is attending her still, and she has to have a woman to wait upon her. She is given 4s. a week as pension in respect of one of her sons. In regard to the other she gets nothing at all, and that is the kind of thing which is going on all over the place. The father is of military age. Imagine taking him into the Army when the mother is crippled in the way she is! This applies to thousands of cases all over the country. I have several others in my own Constituency, although they may not be quite as bad. Where a man has lost two or three sons, although he is still of military age, I do not think he ought to be liable to be called up. I trust the House will reject the proposal of the Government. It is not very often that I speak in these Debates, but I do want the Government to be reasonable, if only in their own interests. We are anxious that this War should be won, but I am afraid that the course the Government are adopting is not going to assist in bringing about that end. The arguments on medical grounds which we have just had addressed to us appear to me to be very illogical indeed. As I go about the streets I see men who to my mind are fit for service. One cannot tell, of course, and we have just had related to us the case of a young man in the Civil Service in which appearances were not justified by the facts. But I see young men riding about in Government motor cars who, I think, ought to be in khaki; and there are even some Members in this House, who are supporting the proposal that the age should be fifty-one, who, in my opinion, ought also to be in khaki. But, of course, they can be passed over. I venture to suggest that men of this age would be of no service whatever in helping to win this War, and I hope, therefore, that the House will insist on a lower age being fixed—say, forty-five years.

This Amendment in some of its aspects is probably the most critical we shall have to deal with in connection with this Bill. There are only two questions which it is necessary for the House to ask and for the Government to answer. The first is, "What is the measure of the military value of men over, shall we say, forty-eight years of age and up to the age of fifty?" Secondly, "What is the measure of the disturbance in commercial and industrial life which will be occasioned by taking these men away from the ordinary industrial life of the country?" Yesterday we had a speech made by the hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), who, it is admitted, has probably more information and more experience in the examination of men by tribunals than any other Member of this House, or, perhaps, any other man in this country. I am referring, of course, to the Deputy-Chairman of Committees, who distinctly told us that, as a result of his experience, he had come to the conclusion that men over forty-eight years of age were of no military value, or of exceptionally little value, for military purposes. That view was confirmed by one or two who subsequently spoke, not members of military tribunals, but officers serving either in this country or abroad. There was not one of these who came back, especially from France, to take part in this Debate but was of opinion that these elderly men were not of any military value in France at all. The Minister of National Service told the House that he had consulted all the best authorities before he came to the decision which he has announced. I do not complain of his absence from the House at this moment. He has been in attendance for a very long time, and we cannot expect him to be continuously present. But it is a great pity there is not somebody here who can say definitely whether among the persons consulted by the Minister of National Service were any large number of chairmen of large tribunals, whose experience has been directed to this subject. I do not say the right hon. Gentleman has not consulted them, but I think if he had done so he would have quoted their view. I should like to be assured upon this most critical point, that the opinions of persons of authority and experience have been prayed in aid of the views pronounced here. I believe the civil authorities almost unanimously condemn the employment on military service of men over forty-eight years of age, and you have, in support of that, the testimony of officers who have themselves been engaged at the front. As against that you ought to have something more than the theories of a Department to support the arguments which have been produced in this House. You must have some actual practice to support those theories before you decide to enforce the proposal to fix the age as suggested in the Bill. So much for the military point of view. Let me turn to the civil aspect. The men who you propose to withdraw from civil life for the purpose of recruiting into the active branches of the Army are, so far as many of them are concerned, actual managers and directors of what are sometimes called one-man businesses, they are associated, too, with businesses extending over great areas, both geographical and financial. We are told the Government are only going to take 7 per cent. of them in the first year. But there was a statement made by the Minister which led me to think that that 7 per cent. in the first year may possibly be followed by another 7 per cent. in the second year, should the War unfortunately last so long. What will be the result? You will withdraw from industry men of no military value, but of great commercial value, whose experience has only been formed after many years of commercial and industrial experience, and who are irreplaceable, so far as their services are concerned. The whole country is already alarmed at this proposal, because it thinks business will be paralysed in many centres of industry, and it is within the knowledge of every Member of this House that that alarm exists. I think to take the age of forty-five would be too low. I understand that no age is actually before the Committee owing to the way in which the Amendment is put to the Committee, but what we are really discussing is forty-eight. To go below forty-eight, I think, would be unreasonable, and to go above forty-eight would be equally unreasonable. [HON. MEMBERS: "Forty-five!"] Not forty-five; I think that is too low, and, as far as I am concerned, if the Government would give us forty-eight it would get rid of a great deal of apprehension. I do not believe it would deprive them of a single man of appreciable military value, but that it would do much to reduce the dislike and apprehension with which this measure is viewed.

I only want to say one word to the Committee, because I was a member of the War Cabinet during a great many of the discussions on this subject. I should like to say that in all my experience in office I never came across a more careful or a more conscientious member of a Government or of any Department than the Minister of National Service, who has just addressed the Committee. We had very many discussions upon this subject, and the statistics which lie had collated and the knowledge that he had shown, impressed me almost more than anything else while I was in office. The Committee must not imagine that a Government, bad and all as they may be do not go into the kind of considerations that have been argued at large by the House this evening. No Government is anxious to disturb trade and business, which is so essential for raising the necessary revenue to carry on the War if it can possibly be avoided. No Government, if they could help it, would desire to add on one single year for the simple reason that they know they are doing a most unpopular act when they do that, and I can assure the Committee that all these questions of trade, all these questions of substitution, all these questions of one-man businesses are all matters that were thrashed out for hours and hours and gone into not in the kind of way in which we go into them here in Committee, but with the most careful statistics and with the right hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House. For my own part, while I know that there is a great deal to be said which is popular, and which is, indeed, reasonable, as regards the disturbance to trade, I certainly would urge the Committee, unless they feel very much convinced upon the point, not to go against the well-weighed scheme which has been put forward in this crisis of the country. It does not at all follow that because a man is over forty-eight that he may not be, for the particular purposes for which he is required, just as good as a man of forty-six—not for going into the trenches, not for going out for fighting purposes, but for strict military purposes. Nor does it follow that if you limit the age to forty-eight you will thereby less disturb trade than if you make it fifty. Not at all, and for this reason. The larger the area you have to select from the better you will be able to regulate the different businesses that are considered essential or non-essential for the War. —[HON. MEMBERS: "Make it seventy!"]—Well, I do not mind, because I know perfectly well that over a certain age none of those would be taken. It stands to reason that the larger the area you have the less, instead of the greater, upset there will be to the trade of the country—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—I am giving my view.

Do you know any business men who agree with it?

Thousands!

I consider that it is a serious thing at this moment to give a vote against this thoroughly worked-out and calculated scheme of His Majesty's Government. They have come here at a time when everyone's heart is nearly broken at the news that we receive from moment to moment as regards this War, and, as far as I am concerned, I certainly will not take upon myself the responsibility of voting against them.

I think we have listened to an extraordinary speech. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) has asked us to believe that the Government, and this Government especially—I will include, if you like, the Government that preceded it—are very reluctant to interfere with trade. That was the whole burden of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Why, the chief danger to which this country is exposed at this moment is through the reckless way in which the Government has interfered with all the trade in the country.

Tea!

Not tea exclusively, not tea any more than sugar.

Tea!

The Committee is very merry, but it is not tea any more than wool, iron, tin, timber, or any of the great trades carried on in this country. The Government has taken hold of them all—

Tea!

Never mind tea; tea is—

Tea is tea!

Well, I venture to say that one of the reasons why we do so badly in the War is that these Government Departments, without the slightest reason, have plunged in the most reckless way into the management of complicated businesses of which they know nothing and in which they are wasting the money of the country and of the unfortunate taxpayers in the most ruthless and reckless manner. I venture to appeal to the Committee whether that is not the belief of everybody. The subject was inquired into by the Commercial Committee upstairs, and there was a unanimous finding that the trades had been very injuriously interfered with. I must not follow my right hon. Friend any further into that matter except just to say that I believe myself most emphatically that it is this interference with trade, which the Government are aggravating by taking this large area of men who are profitably employed in the interests of the nation at the present time, and putting them into some work of no importance whatever, that is exposing the country to so much risk and danger. We have had a most extraordinary Debate. Before the right hon. Baronet, who was the only one to support the proposition of the Bill, from all parts of the House, from every political party, from the Conservatives, from the Labour Benches, from the Liberals—every one in this Committee expressed the opinion that the figure now in the Bill was too high. What effect has that produced on the Government? Not the slightest. The Government does not care about the opinion of Parliament. The Government comes here with a Bill and will not be induced to alter it one whit by anything Parliament says. Let me call attention to one feature of the speech of my right hon. Friend. We all admire the sincerity of the Minister for National Service, but did the Committee notice that he said that fifty was the age? The word fifty does not occur in the Bill at all.

Men of fifty means men under fifty-one.

I do not think it does. You will not find fifty or fifty-five in the Bill. The Bill says fifty-one and fifty-six. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I only draw attention to the fact that the Bill is not correctly described, and I say it would be much better to follow the view urged on the Government from every section of the House than to take this stereotyped Bill, which, after all, does not proceed from the Government themselves. We know where it proceeds from. The whole Bill appeared in the newspapers a week or ten days before we saw it here. The whole thing was probably manufactured in a newspaper office. My right hon. Friend assured the House that any man who was not fit would not be taken. It might interest the Committee if I read a quotation from a letter. This poor fellow, who is not of an age with which we are dealing in the Bill, but is only twenty-four years old, was sent before the medical assessor at 1, Wimpole Street, and that address ought to assure the Committee that this doctor's opinion can be relied on. He says that, although he has been rejected three times, "I was now immediately passed in Grade 2. I am twenty-four years of age. I am 5 ft. 2 ins. in height; my weight is 6 stone 6 lbs.; my chest measurement is 27 ins." [HON. MEMBERS: "Name"] His name is Clarkson. It is a most notorious case. He says he has had a discharge from one of his ears since birth. He is suffering from a tuberculous complaint of the lung, and was ruptured. I say, in face of such evidence as this, we cannot rely on the security which medical examination gives. I would appeal to the Government to listen to the advice that has come from political parties in all parts of the House. I would appeal to the Committee and to the Government at this last moment to consider the opinion that has been expressed here. The Government may not listen to it now, but one day the opinion of this House will be able to make itself felt even on the Treasury Bench.

I rise to support this Amendment. I am largely inspired to do so after listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson). The right hon. Gentleman has laid down the extraordinary doctrine that the reason the age ought to be extended to fifty is that you have a larger man area to draw from. I would imagine that you could extend that doctrine and take away the age limit altogether, because I am quite certain that there are many men of seventy just as vigorous as some men of thirty. Let me give a case in point. The right hon. Gentleman, I believe, is something like sixty-six years of age. I hope I do him no injustice.

Yes; you do.

Let us say sixty-two. The right hon. Gentleman was able to organise a rebellion in Ulster. Why, under these circumstances, should the Empire in its moment of Imperial peril lose the mighty and valiant services of the right hon. Gentleman? This is a business proposition as well as a humanitarian one. It is a humanitarian one, because there are men of fifty years of age who have sent all their sons to the War, and who are now to be. conscripted themselves, and their businesses left to take charge of themselves. Therefore, I say it is a business proposition, and business men ought to be the best judges of it. It is humanitarian, because I think it is a. disgraceful thing to drag in men of fifty years of age, men who can render practically no service. I have heard from these benches repeated speeches, especially from the Prime Minister, that the one great cause of anxiety for the Government at this moment was the shortage of doctors to deal with the casualties as they are now. If you are going to bring in men up to fifty years of age, how are you going medically to deal with them? You are going to fill your hospitals and infirmaries and add to your financial responsibilities, and this great burden is being imposed upon you by the military authorities. But I do not discuss this thing from a business or a humanitarian point of view. I discuss it from the military point of view, and, therefore, I say that there is every justification for extending the age if for no other reason than to secure the ser- vices of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College. He has been a member of successive war Cabinets. He has gone in, and he has gone out. He felt as a civilian adviser of military authorities that he had neither the capacity nor the power, and he left the Cabinet. Why should not ho go over and take charge of the War? We know all the troubles and all the difficulties that have arisen at the front have not been caused by lack of courage on the part of the citizen soldiers who constitute your Army to-day. We know that for undying fidelity to this cause, or simple patriotism, for uncomplaining sacrifice there is no more magnificent manifestation of the patriotism of the people. They have uncomplainingly given everything that they had, and yet we have had blunder following blunder in this War until the war is in the critical position in which it is today. We all know the cause of it. The cause of it lies not with the rank and file, not with the regimental officers, not with the great Army of civilians who are fighting for the cause of liberty, but with those generals who spent their time not in equipping themselves in military efficiency for a great Imperial quarrel, but in delivering Unionist speeches in the drawing-rooms of London. Therefore, I say I will agree to take away the age altogether and let the people secure the services of such mighty warriors as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College.

As the Mover of the Amendment, I wish to express my keen regret that the Government have not seen their way to accept it, or at any rate that they have not shown a spirit of conciliation by dealing with the almost universal expression of opinion from all sides of the House. It must not be thought for a moment that those who believe that forty-eight should be the maximum age are less anxious to make the necessary sacrifices to win this War than the Government or anyone who supports it, but we believe that by the acceptance of the Amendment we are more likely to win the War than by the position which the Government takes up. I appeal to the Home Secretary to allow this matter to stand over until the Report stage. We are all anxious to support the Government. I have supported this and the late Government, through thick and thin. In moving the Amendment, I am actuated only by the interests of my country, and the expres- sion of opinion on all sides of this House is entitled to respect from the Government. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to allow me to withdraw the Amendment, under his promise that the matter shall be considered and a decision given on the Report stage. We want to be relieved from the pain of voting against the Government, and, having regard to the expression of opinion on all sides of the House, we wish to support this Bill and place it on the Statute Book with the greatest possible amount of unanimity. We are entitled at the hands of the Government to further consideration of this matter, and to ask that the final decision shall be given on the Report stage. I make that appeal to the right hon. Gentleman.

I altogether agree with the remarks of the last speaker, and with his appeal to the Government to make a concession, in view of the expression of opinion of Members in all parts of this House. I submit to the Government that they should leave this matter to the judgment of the House. I am sure that no Government with any self-respect at all, after the expression of opinion which we have heard on all sides, would refuse to take off the Government Whips. I desire to refer to one or two matters which have been raised in the course of the Debate. It is only a very few days ago that we were told by a responsible member of the Government that we had a greater number of men, man for man, than the Germans, and that as far as big guns are concerned, and artillery generally, there, again, we have the ascendancy; while as regards munitions, we have more than the Germans have. That was only a few days ago, remember. According to the reports we have received there have been far more casualties among the German forces than among our own troops; therefore we are still stronger than the Germans in numbers of men. It seems to me that this Bill is a little bit of panic legislation on the part of the Government, and I hope that, after further consideration of the proposal, the Government will lower the age. I have an Amendment down to make the age forty-seven, which would really mean forty-eight. [An HON. MEMBER: "No"!] Yes; at forty-seven you take them up to forty-eight; at any rate, this is a point that I want to put to the House: Only yesterday two great committees representing the great labour forces of this country made a recommendation to the Labour party to move an Amendment to lower the age to forty-five. This was carried unanimously by the committees representing the Trades Union Congress and the Labour party of this country. I suggest that a recommendation of that kind cannot be ignored, and I say it cannot be ignored for one particular reason. The Government ought to know by now that the men working in the munition works and shipyards are very, very sensitive, and if they think steps are being taken by the Government in the direction of the conscription of labour you can rest satisfied that you will do a great deal more harm to the cause of the Allies by passing this Bill than if you never passed it at all. I say that anything which is likely to cause unrest, discontent, and dissatisfaction in the controlled establishments, the shipyards, and Government works, ought to be avoided by the Government. If the men in these works find that their fathers are being compelled to join the Army while young men are left out, you can rest assured that there will be a cessation of work.

I have always deplored any strike or threat of strike. I do not think a strike in these circumstances could be justified; but when I admit, and freely admit, that the workers of the country are responsible to the country, that they owe a duty to the country, the Government must recognise that it owes a duty to the men to whom I refer. If the Government does not recognise their feelings in this matter, it can rest satisfied that it will have trouble in the labour world. No one wants to see trouble in the labour world. I have done all I possibly could during the whole time of the War to prevent strikes. I have helped to settle quite a large number, and I have taken action when strikes have been threatened to prevent them. I know the difficulties I have had to get the men to listen to what I thought was reasonable, and therefore I hope the Government has not said its last word in this matter. I do hope the Home Secretary or the Chancellor of the Exchequer will get up now and say they freely accept the Amendment moved by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, even if they will not accept mine. They can rest satisfied that if matters get worse later on, and they want to raise the age, Parliament and the country will be with them. But if the country is not with them on this Bill they can rest satisfied that the position will be worse in the future than it is now.

I regret that it is not possible for the Government to accept the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. T. Wilson) to leave this matter to the decision of the House without the use of the Government Whips. We are sincerely anxious to defer to the opinion of any substantial body of Members of the House on any matter which we do not consider vital to the Bill, and I am sure that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister for National Service convinced all the Members who heard it, and they were a large number, that he had given his careful consideration—indeed, we all of us had, even before this Debate, given our consideration—to the arguments, the weighty arguments I agree, which have